Ties That Bind
by kickstergal
Summary: Chapter 13 up. She glared at Emma while she fought not to blush. "Don't flatter yourself that you're being endearing, Miss Swan. I think aggravating and annoying are far more appropriate."
1. Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER:** Not mine, not even a little bit. Not even the hair on my chinny chin chin owns it... Ahem. If I _had_ hair on my chinny chin chin.

She had so many beautiful things. She picked up a small unicorn statue cast in bronze. Studied the flowing lines, the invisible wind tangling a flying mane. Imagined riding such a beast. Remembered that power was once something she rode, that bore her over hilltops and down valleys and across wild plains. She'd never held an ounce of power for herself, once, and still when she was on her horse she need answer to no one. She'd never conjured a storm or a blizzard or summoned ice and snow and yet she remembers it clearly - that feeling of all the elements answering to her.

Bending to her will.

Mostly, though, she remembered the freedom. How the feeling would linger while Daniel's hands returned her gently to the ground after her riding lesson. How it would disappear the moment she stepped into her mother's chambers.

She set the unicorn back in its place, fighting the urge to throw it against the wall. The urge to mar her pristine office, to tear it apart, often came upon her in moments of high emotion. She supposed the death of her mother and the continued loss of Henry counted.

She'd had a glimpse, one glimpse, of how it could have been, with her mother. And now all she had left was this office, with its empty title to go with it. Her house, with Henry's room vacant. And her heart, such as it was. It still beat. She should know better than anyone a beating heart still had value. Sometimes she wondered how many black parts would have to be cut out, should anyone ever succeed in winning it from her.

She surveyed her surroundings, caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror opposite. Haunted, hunted eyes dressed in immaculate silk. She sneered at the image, holding back a sob.

Her beautiful, ostentatious office, her carefully made-up face, her suits, her shoes, they were weapons. They all showed power, prestige. Control. She made herself a threat by simply walking into a room.

And all her weapons were shields. She'd started dressing the part after "Evil" began to be the first title bestowed upon her, before "Queen." Those who could never hope to understand the depths of her rage and despair could certainly grasp the simple concept of Evil. She had made it easy for them. She had made it easy for herself. It was easier to accept there was no hope for her than to face the fear that whatever little good remained to her might never grow again.

Until Henry. Henry was never afraid of her. He challenged her, made her focus on something more important than herself. He made her sick with fear the first time he caught a cold, made her cry when he took his first steps. The embarrassment she felt the first time he threw a tantrum at the supermarket was nothing compared to how stupid she'd felt when he locked her out of the house the first time. How smug she'd been when he tried it again soon after and she went to grab the second set of keys she'd had made from a plant pot beside the door, only to realise he'd taken that one as well.

Her masks, so carefully in place with everyone else, were trampled with Henry. She went to bed still wearing makeup for six months after he became hers. She balked at the notion of fairy bread, when he came home demanding it one day, only to discover to her relief the recipe did not include fairies. She interrogated him about where he'd picked up the phrase "Open Sesame" before marching to the school to demand the tale be removed from the curriculum. She taught him how to make shadow puppets, and never once thought to tell him she'd once known how to command other creatures that walked in the night. She began to watch him sleep, terrified that someone, somehow would take away this little boy, who had managed to take her heart, black marks and all without knowing a word of magic.

Now, _now_ she must beg permission to see her son from a woman who'd never held him when he had a fever. Had never been gobsmacked when he'd talked matter-of-factly about where babies came from, or that he knew she was the Evil Queen. Had never longed, with a desperation that made her kin to The Hatter, to hear him say "I love you, Mom."

She was an intruder. Emma Swan. Daughter of those rampant do-gooders who consistently plagued her. All she wanted was to be happy, and this blonde champion of all things magical had somehow become the key to her happiness, all because some laughable twist of fate made the woman her son's mother.

Her lip curled and she picked up the unicorn again.

"Don't do it."

She whirled and threw the statue.

Emma Swan deftly caught the unicorn and set it carefully down on her desk, raising a brow at her. "What, did you forget you can incinerate me?"

She snarled. She had forgotten. Having magic again was a drug. When Henry was in her thoughts she found she could resist its pull for a time. But it always found its way under her skin, calling, whispering to her. _This is how you get what you want._ "I could call down lightening from the skies, should I choose, Miss Swan. Unfortunately that death would be far too quick for my liking."

Emma just rolled her eyes. "We both know you're not going to kill me, slow or otherwise. Henry won't go for it."

Her lip curled in a sneer. "Sooner or later you're all going to have to stop hiding behind 'Henry won't like it.'"

Emma just stared at her. "Isn't that the most important thing? God, Regina, why are we all here if not for Henry?"

Guilt coursed through her, along with anger. Close on the anger's heels came the first tingle of magic. "Get out, Miss Swan. Your mother killed mine. You have my son. The whole town hates me. Leave me alone." _Let me figure out who I am, now I've lost myself._

Emma studied her for a moment, then went to sit on her couch. "No."

She stared at her, feeling as off-balance as she sometimes did with Henry. "You can't say no."_ I'm the Evil Queen_, she wanted to add, but refrained at the risk of sounded petulant.

"Because you're the Evil Queen and you say so?" Emma smirked at her, and she felt herself flush.

"No, Miss Swan. Because this is my office and I want to be alone."

"Well, you're going to have to learn that sometimes you don't always get what you want."

She huffed a bitter laugh, feeling old. Brittle. "Miss Swan, if you don't believe I've learned that by now then you are as dense as you appear. But when it comes to the things I- when it comes to what's mine, I've also learned to fight."

"When it comes to the things you love, you fight." Emma ran her gaze around the room, looking for all the world as if she was seeing it for the first time.

She stood stiff and tense, Emma's presence making her a stranger to her office. To herself. Without Henry the office was her. It was her poise and her power and her control of the world. Just like her clothes, it matched the image she wanted to present.

"Miss Swan. It's late. Please, just leave." She hated that it sounded more like a plea than a demand. She hated Emma for the flicker of sympathy that appeared on the blonde woman's face.

"What do you fight with?"

Understanding that Emma's question held a trap, she crossed her arms, realised it was a defensive gesture. Shifted to offense."Of all the absurd questions, Miss Swan." She gave the woman a sultry smile, tinged her voice with honey. "Would you like me to demonstrate my power?"

Emma glared at her. "Enough with the theatrics, Regina. You fight with magic. You really want to win Henry back? Fight for him with truth, with emotion. Be honest. Don't... you hide. You're good at hiding, and I get that, because hiding goes really well with running, and that's my forte."

She stood up, hesitated, then took two long strides to bring her closer. "I'm sorry about your Mom. I didn't have one for 28 years, so..."

"And now you have a _charming_ mother. Get this through your thick skull. We are nothing alike. Not even close-" She broke off, startled, as Emma stepped close. "What-"

"-You think we're so different, Regina?" Emma's gaze raked over her, derisive. "Try dealing with reality, for once. You and I, we both love Henry. That's what we have in common. So maybe instead of hiding behind all those walls you've put up to stop anyone hurting you, you could get it through _your_ thick skull that Henry's the one getting hurt because you refuse to step out from behind them."

Regina watched her as she stepped back, strode to the door. "Henry deals in a different kind of magic. Maybe you wouldn't be so lonely if you accepted that." She left.

She uncurled her fists, automatically went to push down the magic that normally rose during confrontations. Frowned as she realised no power had gathered that she'd have to dispel.

She walked to the desk, picked up the unicorn. _Emotion. Ha. _She launched the unicorn at the door where Emma had been a moment before, and smiled at the dent the statue made.

**A/N:** So, this damned show. I've spent the last month or so watching the lot and it got under my skin. Vive la Swan Queen and this was just something I had in my head, having never written Once Upon A Time fic before. Have a great week!


	2. Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER:** Not mine. But man, do I want the wallpaper in Regina's office. It's haunting my dreams.

Regina paced her bedroom, Emma Swan's parting shot lingering in her head. _"Henry deals in a different kind of magic. Maybe you wouldn't be so lonely if you accepted that."_

She snorted. The woman was clearly delusional. She wasn't _lonely_. She ruled an entire town, for crying out loud! She used to rule an entire _Kingdom_! Her subjects bowed and scraped before her, rushed to meet her every whim.

The fear in their eyes in the Enchanted Forest had changed to wariness, true, after she'd launched the curse and they'd been transported to Storybrooke. But now the curse was broken their loathing was her constant companion, day and night._ So I'm never actually alone, you stupid girl._ She thought in the general direction of Emma Swan, glaring out her window in the vicinity of the Charmings' apartment.

_Wow. My bad. I can see how people's hatred really warms your soul._

She scowled as she imagined Emma's response. "I will turn you into a frog." She threatened out loud, wishing she could turn off that woman's annoying voice in her head. Wishing that it wasn't past midnight, that it was breakfast a year ago and she was watching Henry eat pancakes. Wishing she could sleep.

She'd given up on sleeping, lately. Henry featured in her dreams almost nightly, telling her how happy he was without her. Telling her that he didn't need her, that Miss Swan was his mother now. Rumpelstiltskin or Snow who ever had slighted her that day, or had been slighted by her usually played back-up singer to Henry's song with a few rousing choruses of _Everyone hates you. No one, no one will ever look at you again with love._

The last time she'd woken up with her sheets tangled around her, breathing like she'd been running for her life from a mob and tears on her face, she'd decided that sleep was for the weak, anyway. That three or four hours of fretful sleep were perfectly sufficient for someone that didn't have a job or a family anymore.

She scrubbed at her face and sank down on her bed. She was getting maudlin. Maudlin didn't solve anything. It just made her as pathetic as those Charmings and Regina Mills _certainly_ would never sink to their level.

She squared her shoulders, fighting back the wave of exhaustion that hit her. _No. It's time for a change._

She was in the middle of her kitchen, trying to push a cupboard across the floor without the use of magic, trying not to give in to the twin urges to smash the thing to pieces or cry hysterically on the floor when Emma Swan strolled in.

"What the hell are you doing?"

She stopped pushing the cupboard and stood up, panting. Resisting the urge to fix her hair and straighten her pajamas she crossed her arms and planted her feet firmly, trying not to sway from exhaustion. "It's 3 a.m., Miss Swan." Her voice sounded like she'd been in a jail cell for a lifetime, screaming for release.

If Emma noticed the gravel in her voice or her state of disrepair she didn't show it. The blonde gestured around the kitchen, where the detritus of measuring tape, paint samples and a hacksaw lay scattered. "Exactly. Why are you renovating your kitchen at 3 a.m.?"

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again to threaten magical action when Emma piped up again.

"Wait, I amend the question. Why are you renovating your kitchen _yourself_? At 3 a.m."

She gave in and swiped a hand over her hair. Tried to stand a little taller when she noticed that Emma Swan stood slightly above her when she didn't have heels on. "What I do in my own kitchen at 3 a.m. is nobody's business but mine. What is my business is why _you_ broke into my house in the middle of the night."

Emma shrugged. "Firstly, I didn't break in. I borrowed Henry's key. And I couldn't sleep. I thought maybe you might need..." She hesitated.

She huffed a laugh, ignoring the sudden twinge from her heart. "What, Miss Swan? You thought that I might need something from _you_?"

Her companion raised her chin, waved a hand in the direction of the chaos she'd created. "Maybe you need a hand with your, um..."

Regina rolled her eyes. "Feature wall."

"Feature wall?" Emma raised a brow.

"Yes, a feature wall." She snapped. "It was time for a change."

'Oh." Emma fidgeted. Ventured, "What is it going to feature?"

She snarled. "Get. Out."

Emma grinned at her. "Then how are you going to move the cupboard? Henry won't like it if-"

"-If I use magic." She finished. "Does it ever occur to you Miss Swan, to use different material?"

"Why would I when the material I have is so effective?" Emma batted her eyelashes at her, and she hastily attributed the fact that she had to stop herself laughing to her state of mental fatigue. "Where to, Madam Mayor?"

"Into the living room."

Emma shrugged out of her jacket, and joined her beside the cupboard."On the count of three. One, two..."

Rolling her eyes at the woman's natural assumption of authority, she nonetheless pushed on _three_ and they managed to drag the furniture into her living room.

She fled from Emma's triumphant smile back into the kitchen, lest the woman think they were a _team_ now, of all the ridiculous notions.

She stood for a moment alone, while the incongruousness of the situation settled on her, heavy and tainted with bitterness. They weren't friends. She didn't know why she'd shown up on her doorstep, but she sure as hell wasn't going to let her worm her way under her skin.

Emma stepped in. "What's next?"

"Well..." She eyed her kitchen, grasping for something to give the woman to do so she'd leave her alone. She kept her eyes on the now-bare wall, sensed Emma coming to stand beside her.

"What do you want, Regina?"

The anger and tiredness brewing all night spiked at Emma's gentle tone. Poison came dripping from her mouth in honeyed tones. "What do I want? Well, Miss Swan, if you were any more than a thorn in my side than I'm sure that I'd tell you. But as we are not in any way, shape or form friends and you are not currently featuring any higher than _waste of space_ on my priority list, I do believe I'll decline to answer that particular query. You are excused from my house." Her orders given, she turned on her heel and glided into her living room, settling gracefully on her couch.

Emma came to stand in the doorway. "You know, the pyjamas kind of hinder the whole "I'm-the-Evil-Queen-that's-why look."

She refused to flush. "Go away." She stared into space as Emma came to sit beside her, though her skin prickled at their proximity. She registered, then dismissed Emma's warmth as irrelevant.

"What do you want, Regina?"

Her shoulders slumped. "I don't want a feature wall."

"Well, that's one true thing." Emma laid a light hand on her shoulder. "One more, and you can sleep."

She flinched at the touch, but Emma didn't move her hand. "I don't know how to love."

When Emma laughed, soft and low, she turned her head to look at the woman beside her. "Whatever, Regina. You do so know how to love. You just don't trust that other people love _you._ So you keep their hearts locked away like possessions; you kept Henry locked up in your house. The issue isn't love, Regina. It's trust."

She stared at Emma, stunned by the succinctness of the woman's statement. Tried to deny the truth of it and clenched her fists when she couldn't dismiss the notion out of hand.

"Well, how the hell am I supposed to work on that?" Regina snarled, feeling her composure slipping. Finding that she didn't care.

Emma's lips twitched. "Well, curbing the 'kill now, ask questions later' reflex may be a start."

She refused to smile back. "Ah yes. Excellent plan, Miss Swan. Which undoubtedly will end with me tied to a stake, burning."

Emma tilted her head. "I thought you were going to get shot with a crossbow when you were on trial in the Enchanted Forest"

"I was using a reference to _your_ history. You may want to try it sometime. It's called learning."

"You looked up witches?"

"Why is this relevant?" She put a hand to her temple, trying to rub away the headache forming.

"I just can't believe that you Googled yourself."

She froze. "I did nothing of the sort."

Amused eyes travelled over her face, drawing heat to the surface. "Yeah. You did. Trust me."

"_That_, I am perfectly happy not doing." She stated, shifting away from the warmth against her side that she'd somehow relaxed into.

Emma frowned at her. "That, you're going to be working on."

"You can't tell me what to do."

Emma gave her a look, eerily similar to Henry's-what-are-you-an-imbecile one. "I think I just did. And you can show Henry what you've learned."

She rolled her eyes. "And will he give me a gold star?"

Emma's serious expression made her sneer falter. "You'd better hope so, Regina."

She bit back the angry retort on the tip of her tongue. Studied the woman beside her who, against all odds, was still trying to help her. "Alright," she said quietly. "Where do I start?"

Emma pushed against her shoulder. "Lie back."

"I'm not going to sleep with you, Miss Swan." She stated baldly as she lay down. Her stomach jumped nervously at the smirk on the other woman's face.

"You wish, Madam Mayor. But you are going to sleep. That's where you start."

She closed her eyes as fatigue swept through her, sudden and all-encompassing. She felt Emma's hand weaving gently through her hair, once, twice, three times.

And she slept.

**A/N:** I really, really just wanted to write something where the Evil Queen tries unsuccessfully to renovate her kitchen in the middle of the night on a whim, like a normal screwed up human being. Thanks heaps for reading and also for reviewing. Hope everyone has a fantastic week!


	3. Chapter 3

**DISCLAIMER**: Still not mine, despite buying birthday candles and blowing them all out while they were sticking out of a Dunkin Donut.

Regina stalked the streets of Storybrooke, searching for her prey. Smiled dangerously when she saw the hideous yellow monstrosity otherwise known as a drivable car parked outside the station.

She'd woken this morning on her couch, and she hadn't felt like ground was cracking beneath her. The need to reach for magic to steady her, to keep her whole, was there, but it wasn't _everything_. She'd dreamt of her son, and he'd smiled at her.

She'd laughed softly, amazed, grateful...suspicious. Emma Swan had found and placed a blanket over her. And then it hit her that Emma Swan had watched her fall asleep. Emma Swan had woven her hands through her hair and she'd fallen asleep. She could count on two fingers and not use all of them the number of times she'd gone to sleep in weeks without hours of mental torture, walking all of the roads she might have taken and always ending at the same choices.

The ones she'd chosen. The ones she'd had no choice to take.

She'd woken feeling like she was larger pieces of herself, something that might still be put back together, rather than tiny shards, twisted and bent, shimmering light and dark. Emma Swan had done that. And she'd used magic to do it.

Cold rage at being manipulated into accepting help she didn't ask for rose up as she yanked open the door to the station. Barked a simple "Out" at a townsperson sitting at Emma's desk.

As the townsperson vacated the seat and scurried out, she gracefully moved across the room and sank into the chair. "Miss Swan, I believe we need to have a talk about personal boundaries."

Emma ignored this. "You can't just come in here and order people to leave!"

She raised a brow. "But you can just walk into my house and use magic on me? Is that how this little game of _trust_ works, Miss Swan?"

She'd meant to sound angry, to watch terror flit across the other woman's face. But her voice came out sad and shaky and the expression in Emma's eyes as she registered the sound made her teeth clench and her rage spike.

She slammed a hand on the desk, and she was relieved to see anger kindle in Emma's eyes. "Well?"

"What the hell are you talking about, lady? I helped you moved your damn furniture around, and we agreed you'd try not to be a psychotic bitch. Evidently that didn't work out."

She flinched as Emma's words hit. _If she really believes that, so does Henry._ She raised her chin, smiled cruelly. "Well, dear. Clearly I'm such a psychotic bitch that you needed to magically drug me into submission."

Emma opened her mouth to retaliate, then stopped. "Look, Regina. I don't know what you think I did, but I didn't do it. You need to trust me."

"Said the spider to the fly." She mocked.

Emma threw up her hands. "All I did was touch you, Regina. Is it so hard to believe that I had no ulterior motive?"

_Yes. _She looked away, feeling her anger drain away as suddenly as it had come. Leave a bone-deep weariness. "What makes you different than anybody else?"

Emma looked like she was genuinely considering the question. Then she shrugged. "Well, I'm the goddamned Savior."

She huffed a laugh. Felt the rest of the rage dissipate as Emma feigned a wounded expression, pointed at her. "Fine, Your Majesty, mock all you want. But don't think you're going to get that fucking cupboard back in your kitchen without my help."

_Oh. That._ She shrugged. "I am happy to call you Savior for the duration of the cupboard's move, Miss Swan."

Emma rolled her eyes. "Thanks."

Silence fell while she tried to reconcile the need to retreat, to run, to stay safe within the conviction that somehow there was a trap here, with the uncomfortable, tempting urge to follow the curious and oddly compelling paths that made up Emma Swan.

"Look. I didn't, uh," Emma waved a hand in the air. "I don't know, shazam you. I just wanted to help."

She sneered. "Of course you didn't, dear, you just..." She paused. "What did you just say?"

Emma reddened. "I wanted to help."

"Before that."

Emma fidgeted, then glared at her. "I didn't."

She smiled. Sweetly."What, exactly, is a shazam?"

Emma shoved her hair behind her ears. "I don't know. Using magic. I didn't use magic on you. Happy?"

She gave in and let her lips twitch. "I don't know. You may have to shazam me and find out."

"Oh, shut up." Emma managed to scowl at her for three seconds before huffing a laugh. "I don't know what I did, Regina, but it wasn't magic."

She studied her. Emma sat facing her – wary, true, but determined as well, and oh, so fierce. She reminded her so much of Henry, his implacable, unshakeable believe in the truth of a matter. Had never really considered before that Emma was the source for some of that stubborn faith in lost causes.

She twisted her hands together. Dropped them as Emma's gaze flickered down, then back up to rest on her face. "Then what was it, Miss Swan?"

Emma met her eyes, steady, and a half-remembered anxious _zing_ tracked up her spine. "Comfort. God, Regina, you looked...When I first got here you had the God-complex thing going on, but damned if you didn't know exactly who you where. I would kill to be that assured. Half the time I feel like I'm naked in front of the class in this town. I'm not a Princess, I'm not a Savior I'm trying to be a Mom, a daughter...a friend. And all of it in a small town fishbowl." She gave a shrug. "Yesterday was the first time you looked more lost than I feel."

She groped for words, clamped a tighter fist around her control. "Well dear, I'll certainly try never again to end up on an emotional level comparable with Emma Swan's."

To her surprise, Emma grinned. "Perish the thought, Your Majesty."

She pointed a finger. "I wouldn't mock, Miss Swan. I can arrange for you to actually be naked in front of a class."

Emma just rolled her eyes at her, but not before she caught the flush rising on her cheeks.

_Interesting._

Emma leaned forward slightly, clearly wishing to change the subject. "Well, look. We should do something tomorrow. All three of us. It may...help."

_Time with Henry. _Not willing in the slightest to show the delight even the thought of time with her son brought her, Regina placed her hands on Emma's desk and leaned forward as well. "What, you think a day of board games and hot chocolate and cookies is going to cure me? Just, you know," her lip curled nastily "Shazam?"

Emma glared at her and she waited, unwilling to admit to herself she was provoking the woman because she wanted to see her reaction, rather than from true rancor.

She watched, unwillingly fascinated, as the glare transformed into something smug, amused. Watched as Emma slowly reached out and picked up her phone. Began to feel nervous as Emma dialed a number.

Emma locked eyes with her as the call connected. "Henry? Hey, it's me."

_Oh, no_.

"Your Mom was just saying how she'd love us to come over tomorrow and we can play board games." Emma's smirk grew wider as she raised a brow at Regina. "Oh, really?" She drawled the last word, and she squirmed, knowing what was coming.

"You mean she used to play board games with you all the time? Wow." Emma studied her as she listened to Henry, and she dutifully ignored the gaze as she pretended to find the contents of her purse suddenly required her immediate attention. She took out her compact, looked at her own flushed cheeks and woefully inadequate I-don't-care expression, and winced inwardly. _Evil Queen, my ass._

"Oh, cool. Ok, well, see you tonight. We'll go pick up some cookies for tomorrow. And some hot chocolate."

She swung her gaze back to Emma as she wrapped up the call. Struggled to assert her features into express disapproval of the mischief she saw in the Sheriff's eyes.

Emma hung up the phone. Smiled at her, sweetly. "Shazam."

**A/N:** Perhaps Regina will learn to keep her mouth shut next time. Probably not, since I'm writing this.

I said have a great week in the last chapter but then felt the need to write this today, so the order still stands. Thanks for the lovely/thoughtful reviews, too – much appreciated! :)


	4. Chapter 4

**DISCLAIMER: Not mine. But I love it just the same.**

Regina Mills was experiencing several different emotions.

Anger, at the fact she was spending time with her son only because Emma Swan had deigned to let her. There was joy, because Henry was sitting across from her and even though she could sense the wariness threaded underneath his skin like armour, he'd looked at her several times today and smiled. And so there was fear, because the moment she put a foot wrong the delight in her son's eyes would fade and Emma would whisk him away, quick as a candle-flame blown out.

She had been on guard against herself all day; against the thought she would fail in this endeavor to be lovable. She didn't know what to do with that despair except let it course through her while she smiled, too-bright, and offered drinks every half hour on the dot.

She sneered at herself inwardly. _Being the perfect hostess is certainly the spell that will save you. Idiot._

Regina fists clenched tight around the dice she was holding as she contemplated her next move. Hastily rolled the dice when she noticed Emma watching her. She rearranged her features into a pleasant smile as she moved her marker across the board, kept her voice even as she landed herself in jail for the third time.

"Darn." She met Emma's eyes across the table. "Jail seems to be the best place for me."

Emma frowned at her. "Regina, I..."

She cut off any platitudes the woman was going to offer. "You guys carry on, I'll just check on the cookies."

She gave them both a bright smile and pretended not to see the glance they exchanged as she turned to walk into the kitchen. Willed herself not to give in to the urge to run.

She closed the door quietly behind her and took a gasping breath. Viciously pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes.

She didn't know how to be herself. No. She was too afraid to be herself under the beady eyes of one Emma Swan.

A knock sounded on the kitchen door and she hastily swiped at her cheeks, fixed a smile in place as she turned around. Let it slide from her face like water as Emma Swan stepped into the kitchen. She raised a brow towards the back wall. "Nice cupboard."

Regina rolled her eyes. "Yes, I was planning to put a feature wall there, but the cupboard serves there better."

Emma smirked. "Bet it's heavy."

She didn't like being laughed at, period, let alone in her own home. About to snap a response, she jerked her control back into place. This was about Henry, and point scoring wasn't on the agenda.

"Yes. I appreciate the help moving it, Miss Swan."

Emma studied her, the mischief fading from her face. "This isn't a test."

"Isn't it?" Her voice was ice, the tone one she used to make men cower and bend to her will. The other woman just contemplated the ceiling for a moment before scowling at her.

"Jesus, Regina, it's a few hours to spend with the kid. Take it for what it is."

"And what is that?"

"A step in the right direction. A chance for you to spend some time with your son where you're not trying to kill someone and I'm not trying to stop you!" Emma glared at her, and she noticed for the first time that the other woman's jaw was tense, her posture defensive.

_So she's not exactly loving this, either._ She sighed. "I don't want to feel like if I set a foot wrong Sheriff Swan will come out to play, and either put me in jail or refuse to let me see Henry. I don't like being held to ransom by my love for my son."

Emma Swan laughed. She didn't like that she was thrown off-balance at the sound. "Sheriff Swan is off-duty, and has been thinking about those cookies in the oven for the better part of the afternoon. Refusing to let you see Henry is not conducive to getting my hands on those. Also, you're already in jail. For the third time in like an hour."

Regina fought the urge to curl her lip. "That dice is loaded. And you aren't taking me seriously, Miss Swan. I do understand your penchant for avoiding grown-up conversation but..." She spread her hands, knowing her was smile tinged with darkness. Felt the magic rising with her distress. "...If you could indulge me."

Emma studied her for a moment. And then went right to the heart of the matter. "I have news for you, Madam Mayor. If you think that anyone in this town hasn't been held to ransom by their love for someone at some point, you are sadly mistaken. I was up at some god-awful hour this morning because Henry had some burning question about whether or not we should bring you food and could I make anything that doesn't involve eggs or a microwave." She rolled her eyes. "If that's not being held to ransom I don't know what is. The question is..." She raised a brow. "Do you want to be a willing prisoner or are you going to bitch about it all evening?"

She tried to hold back the smile that came as she realised her son had been just as nervous about this as she had. She let it slip through anyway as she ignored Emma's question. "_Can_ you make anything that doesn't involve eggs and a microwave?"

Emma smirked. "I can make waffles. And French toast."

"Putting French in front of it doesn't make it better, Miss Swan."

"Only if we're talking toast, Madame Mayor."

She stared at her. "What are you talking –" Emma's gaze dropped to her mouth, back up. "Oh." She noted Emma was struggling not to make her smirk a full-blown grin, and resolved, jail or no, that she wasn't going to let the woman win _this_ particular game.

She tapped a finger against her lips, saw Emma's gaze sharpen. "Actually, I can think of something else that's better with French in front of it."

She sashayed up to the Sheriff, saw Emma tense, deliberately relax. "What's that?"

She leant over, and purred. "Vanilla icecream. Tell me, Sheriff. Do you like it vanilla?"

Emma opened her mouth. Closed it. Then glared at Regina, a faint blush colouring her cheeks. "We should get back to Henry."

"So we should." And feeling more like herself than she had all night, she swung gracefully out of the kitchen.

Henry eyed them both as they returned to the table. "Everything okay?"

She smiled at him. "Of course. Whose turn?"

"Yours." He handed her the dice, and her heart dropped again at the hesitation in the gesture.

Emma saw it too. "No one is going to jail, Regina."

"She's already _in _jail, Emma." Henry piped up.

She shook her head, understanding the message and trying not to let it warm her. She blew on the dice, and grinned at them both. "I believe you're mistaken, Henry."

She rolled the dice, and two sixes came to a stop on the table.

Emma's jaw dropped. "Cheat!"

Henry just grinned. "It's her trick. She used to do that all the time, before the curse. It's not magic."

Emma's gaze came to rest on her. "Remind me not to play Yahtzee with you."

She just moved her marker, came to rest on Chance. "Take a chance... Oh, look. I can buy a Utility. That means I own two...I wonder whom I need to finagle the other two out of."

"That would be her." Henry pointed at Emma.

"Henry, what happened the last time we played Monopoly?" Emma asked, still watching her.

Henry rolled his eyes. "You took all my houses and my money."

Regina raised an eyebrow. "How motherly of you."

"Hey, you used to beat me at Guess Who every time!"

She switched her gaze to Henry. Narrowed her eyes. "You weren't supposed to tell her that."

He shrugged, deliberately casual, but she caught the smile he was hiding and her heart beat faster. "Give me an extra cookie after dinner and I won't tell her about the victory dance."

She closed her eyes, then looked at Emma, who was looking at her like she'd just been informed that all her Christmases had come at once. "What are you so thrilled about?"

Emma shrugged. "Nothing. Just contemplating the YouTube possibilities and how much I should charge you for not revealing this information to the town."

She cocked her head. Looked between them. Henry tense and hopeful, Emma just watching her with an infuriating little smirk.

_No jail tonight. Please._

She drew herself up, and snarled. "Emma Swan, should you breathe a word of the fact the Evil Queen has a victory dance there will come a day when you rue the day you met me. And revenge will be so very, _very_ sweet." Through her glare she saw Henry pale. _Play the game, Miss Swan._

Emma put a hand on Henry's shoulder, winked at him when he looked at her. She tried and failed not to mind that he relaxed at her silent reassurance, and genuinely glared at Emma when she leaned forward so that they were eye to eye.

The other woman held up three fingers. "Three cookies, and my lips are sealed."

She sniffed, feeling the relief surge through her. "Two, and we'll all be grateful I didn't ask you to make French toast."

"Three, and I'll bring French _vanilla_ next time."

She pretended to consider. "Done." She extended her hand, and they shook. She ignored the tingle as Emma's magic slid along her nerves at the contact. Ignored the urge to hold onto her hand, prolong the feeling of power that no doubt would come with a price.

Henry frowned. "You're not mad." It was a statement, and she thanked whatever power existed in this world that his fear of her wasn't constant.

She grinned at him. "Nope. Just hungry. You can have a cookie now if you run and put the trash out for me."

He studied her for a minute, then smiled. "Can I have two if I help you beat Emma?"

Emma swatted the back of his head. "Go, traitor."

Her eyes followed Henry as he left the room, then flicked to Emma. "Thank you, Miss Swan."

The blonde looked at her, and something she couldn't read flickered across her face. She held out a hand to Regina. "Emma, and I'll let you beat me at poker sometime."

She looked at the offered hand, clenched her own. She scoffed. "I hardly think that sometime who can't even strategise what she's wearing in the morning can beat _me_ at poker."

Emma lowered her hand, gave a half-shrug. "You might be surprised." She fiddled with the cuffs of her jacket, looked towards the kitchen door that Henry had disappeared through.

_I already am. I'm surprised I noticed that I just hurt you._

She searched for a way to get them back onto familiar ground. "Emma."

"Yeah?"

"This is nice. But don't think for one minute you're going to get a victory dance out of me."

Emma gave her a half-smile. "It's a long-term game, Regina. I wouldn't be so sure."

The worrying thing was, she wasn't.

**A/N: **It's got to be interesting, having someone under your skin that you're not entirely sure you want there. Thanks as usual for all the reads and lovely reviews, they are much appreciated. Have an awesome week.


	5. Chapter 5

**DISCLAIMER:** I keep denying that it's mine because maybe I'll reverse pyschologise it.

It had become routine for her to escape her house for an early morning walk along the waterfront each day. She ran the risk of mobs, of running into one or both of the Charmings if she walked around town during the day like a normal citizen. Unable to stomach either option, she had chosen the peace and quiet of the morning and only chafed a little at the fact she was now forced to borrow her streets, rather than own them.

She shivered at the touch of the cold air on her skin as she walked, eyeing the storm clouds gathering slowly over the water. The days were getting shorter and the mornings colder, and she knew soon she'd be walking carefully on snow-covered paths.

The trees lining the walkway rustled as the wind picked up, stirring memories as well as leaves. She remembered a brief period of time in another land, when she'd walk in the rain. She used to have a bad habit of forgetting her gloves, and so the man who walked beside her would take her hands and blow on them, to keep her warm.

She rounded a corner in the path and ran straight into Emma Swan.

"Oh, I'm so sorry – Oh. It's you."

She smirked in spite of the wariness in the other woman's voice. "Yes, it's me. Do you wish to retract your apology?"

Emma shrugged. "Keep it. I wasn't looking where I was going."

"Why are you out here so early?" It came out sounding like a demand, and she winced inwardly.

"Why are you?"

She blinked as Emma's question came out sounding just as churlish. "I'm walking."

"So am I."

She gave up. "Well, then." She made to walk around the blonde, making a mental note to tell Henry to tell his birth mother to buy herself gloves. And a scarf.

"Wait, that's it?" She turned to find Emma raising her brows at her. "You're not going to tax me for breathing the same air as you, insult my clothing, tell me something I need to improve about my personality? At least give me a sneer, something."

She blinked again, making another mental note to start having coffee _before_ she took her walk in the morning. "I beg your pardon?"

Emma smirked at her, and she noticed for the first time that her eyes were bloodshot, her hair unbrushed... she looked tired. And there was something in her gaze, something...

_Oh._

"You're trying to provoke me."

"No." Emma closed her eyes, opened them to fix on her. "Yes."

She cocked her head, indicating Emma should walk with her. It was too cold to stand in one place for long and she didn't want the woman freezing to death before she found out the reasoning behind the Sheriff's current psychosis. "Why?"

She saw Emma bite her lip out of the corner of her eye. "Do you remember when I first came to town?"

"I daresay if I try I can coax it out of the more traumatic memories I've suppressed." She said dryly.

"Okay, stupid question. Do you remember the day I cut off one of the branches of your tree?"

She didn't answer. That had been the day she'd truly realised she had a nemesis that would not be as easy to get rid of as she'd originally estimated.

Standing amongst the debris of one of the symbols of her power, she'd felt sweet rage wash through her at the other woman's bold, heated audacity. Along with it a strange excitement had kindled in the pit of her stomach and curled, sparking emotion that had long lain dormant. Outrage, frustration... Arousal. She stopped walking abruptly.

Emma looked at her, stopping too. "What?"

She forced herself to answer the question, keep walking. "I do."

Emma nodded, frowning up at the sky as the first drops of rain began to fall. "I realised that it felt ...good."

"Cutting my tree to pieces?" She enquired, sweetly.

"Fighting with you." Emma shrugged. "_That_ kept me up half the night thinking that clearly, I was nuts...but then I realised I hadn't lost it at anyone since Ne- for a long time."

She could see where this little analysis was heading. "And you think that, what, I need to take out all my pent-up rage and aggression and I'll be fine? Please, Miss Swan. I think we can agree my situation is a little more complex than that."

"I think we can definitely agree you make everything more complex, Regina." Emma smirked at her when she glared at her, and continued "But, it's not like you've really had the opportunity to be pissed off in 28 years of people doing what you tell them to."

She shook her head. "I've been furious with you and your lovely parents, as well as the rest of my loyal citizens since the curse was broken, dear. You'll need to try again."

Emma raised a brow. "How much of that was Evil Queen theatrics, and how much of that was actual Regina rage?"

She broke off the walkway abruptly and went to stand by the railing along the path, looking out over the water. She pulled her coat tighter around her as the rain started to fall harder, coating her skin. Washing her clean.

She didn't turn her head as Emma came to stand beside her. "I'm not a science project, Miss Swan. I'm not someone you can hope to change. My heart..." She clenched her jaw as a shiver ran through her, deeper than the cold. "Evil Queens don't come with a fairytale ending."

Emma moved closer, and she fought the urge to move her arm as Emma's rested against hers, barely touching. "You really don't have the slightest clue of who to trust anymore, do you?"

She studied the pattern of the rain on the water. Willed herself to find the calm that lay under the ripples on the surface. They always meant nothing, in the end. "I'm perfectly aware of who my friends are, Miss Swan. That's why I don't have any." She'd meant to sound flippant.

Emma's arm pressed a little harder against hers. "So, you're kind of a loner."

She stepped away. "This isn't funny."

Emma shook her head, swiped her hair back. "No...it's just, I am too." She flicked up her shoulder in a shrug, like it was no big deal. Like it was part of life, to have no one.

She'd come to believe the same.

"You could have chosen differently, Miss Swan."

She phrased Emma's decision to give up Henry as a statement. Expected with a ridiculous sense of certainty that Emma would hear the question beneath the words. Emma reached out, joined the droplets of water on the railing together. "It wasn't a choice." She knew that look as well, pretend indifference and hopelessness and helpless rage. It was what she'd felt in varying degrees since the day Daniel died.

"No, I suppose it wasn't." She allowed, turning to walk away. She paused when she realised Emma was still standing at the railing. "It's cold, Miss Swan. We should get inside."

Emma nodded once, jerkily, and followed in silence.

They followed the path back to the main part of town, and she concentrated on steeling herself, as she did every morning, against wishing for the early morning routine she used to share with Henry. To wake up and not be alone.

She took a deep breath. "You should wear gloves."

Emma looked up, surprised out of her thoughts. "Thank you. I keep forgetting them."

"I knew someone like that, once." She dismissed the information she'd shared with a small grimace, pulled off her gloves. "Here. I have a spare pair."

Emma took them. "Thanks." They reached the end of the walkway, and Regina watched the hesitation trace across her features along with raindrops, before Emma offered a half-smile. "This has been weird."

She nodded, slowly. "I believe this conversation definitely falls under that category."

"Well. Bye."

"Goodbye, Miss Swan."

She walked home, half-amazed that she'd walked through the rain with Emma Swan. Half-furious she'd allowed Emma Swan to dig herself in yet again where she wasn't wanted, wasn't welcome. Refused to think about the fact that the same strange excitement was curling through her.

**A/N:** They're such dorks, honestly. Thanks so much for all the reads/funny reviews - _I_ want to see Regina's victory dance as well! One day. Someway, somehow.


	6. Chapter 6

**DISCLAIMER**: Giving up on disclaimers - let's face it, if it was mine there would certainly be an Evil Queen victory dance. Must start a petition or figure out how to do a GIF or something.

Her days had been filled with invented tasks, petty revenges, small conversations that left her feeling temporarily satisfied but unfilled when she sat at her bedroom window each evening, watching over the town at the shadows crept in. The town was still scared of her; she still could not stand Snow White even in the smallest dose, and the other Charming she only tolerated because he looked at her sometimes and she saw understanding, instead of pity.

But she was slowly establishing pieces to her day that had more meaning, substance...something that tethered her to the town in a way she didn't fully understand and wasn't entirely comfortable with.

It brought her Henry though, and that was all that mattered. She went for her walk each morning, came home to revise the town laws, draft new ones that might suit the town more with the magic beings that now walked the streets. Emma had suggested it and she'd tried desperately to accept without seeming to leap at the offer.

She still wasn't sure what to make of the amusement in Emma's eyes when she'd suggested a referendum should be held to ratify the giant laws she'd drafted, seeing as she'd never had to deal with them during her reign. She'd almost snarled and snapped, until Emma had raised the point that perhaps she'd like to consult with the giant in question. Considering she'd let Storybrooke's current giant loose on the town in the first place, she'd hastily changed the subject.

Wednesdays were the hardest. This was her allocated day to pick Henry up from school and have dinner with him, and while she had trouble with the fact that evidently there was only one day out of seven that she was trusted enough to be alone with Henry unsupervised, she held her tongue for the four hours of uninterrupted time with her son.

She listened to him, now. She'd cared, befor,e but now she took what he had to say each Wednesday and held it close until she saw him again. He mentioned he'd had trouble with a particular concept of global warming, and she'd forgone the town laws for all of Thursday, researching so she could explain the concept to him the next week. He'd nodded eagerly and requested Pad Thai when she suggested she experiment with Thai cooking one night, and something had tightened in her heart when she realised he'd eaten this first new meal without her. She'd known who her son was, but the gift that Emma Swan had given her against all odds was who he was becoming.

Yet Wednesdays were the hardest, because when he walked out the door to Emma's car all she could think, with rage, with helplessness and fury and a bone-deep sorrow, was _Mine_.

She was surprised, about three weeks into the new functionality of her life when a knock came at her door. She opened it to see one Emma Swan and her son looking at her with identical grins.

"We're playing hooky." Henry informed her.

"We are." Emma confirmed, and she almost pointed out that they waited for her response with the same ridiculous expressions of half-excitement, half-trepidation.

She raised a brow. '_Why_ are we playing hooky?"

"Because Henry made an A+ on his history report and I told him I'd let him take a day off if he did."

She stared at Emma. "What?"

She shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"She says that a lot." Henry pushed past them both into the house. "We're going to watch a movie, you should watch too."

She pinned her eyes on the other woman, who made to slink past her as well. Emma froze in place and managed to conjure an expression of guilt as Regina called out to her son. "I'll allow it this once, Henry. You set up the movie, Miss Swan and I will be there in a minute."

She waited as Emma fidgeted, then ventured. "We thought you'd be pleased to see us."

"How interesting. I thought my son would be in school."

"Our son did well and he got a reward for it!"

"Our son should not be incentivised with time off from his education!" She glared at Emma, who glared back, then rolled her eyes.

"It was a bad call, okay? I haven't been doing the whole Mother of the Year thing as long as you have, and I said the first thing that popped into my head. He's happy, I was happy to take the day off and spend it here. It's not like you haven't been looking at me every Wednesday for the last three weeks like it kills you to let him walk away. So we're here. What are you going to do about it?"

She managed to meet Emma's glare for about three seconds, then looked away. "If I was Mother of the Year he wouldn't be with you." She took a deep breath, consciously grounded the magic running under her skin. "Would you care to come in, Miss Swan?"

Emma nodded, stepped past her. "What do you suggest I use next time?"

She thought a moment, then smiled ruefully. "A supervised day off from school, no more than twice a year sounds like a good plan."

Emma smiled. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. And I..." She hesitated, unwilling to look out of her depth in front of the woman. "I don't know how to play 'Hooky.'"

Emma grinned at her, then ran a slow gaze down her body. She felt her skin warm as Emma took in the tailored blouse and shirt, and heels that she wore. Considering she wasn't going to see anyone that day, she fought the urge to confess that the clothes were another thing that held her together. "Well. First of all you're going to need to take that off."

She blinked. "And wear _what_?"

"Please tell me you own a pair of jeans."

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"Psychics? Puh-leese. That's just street smarts, you know? Reading people."

"What do you think psychics do? They read people."

Henry was happily ensconced in his movie, and, suitably glad in jeans and a tee-shirt she'd bought by accident ten years ago, she'd surrendered her work to the task of educating Emma Swan on the supernatural.

Emma took a bite of the quiche they'd picked up at Granny's on the way over. She'd confessed that Granny wasn't all that impressed with her hooky day either. She'd been absurdly pleased that someone in the town had seen her point, and the sheepish expression that had crossed Emma's face had delighted her, against all reason.

"No, come on. People protect their minds the same way they protect their hearts. It's a violation, to abuse that."

She paused in lifting her coffee cup to her mouth as the other woman saw her blunder and began to backpedal. "I mean-"

She held up a hand. "-It's alright, dear. It is a violation, to take someone's mind or their heart. That's why it has its roots in darker magic. Psychics are able to sense weak points in a person's mind, the same way, say, Rumpelstiltskin can sense the darker yearnings of someone's heart." She smiled, and she knew from the look on Emma's face that one of her masks had slipped in place. "Or how, when I rip someone's heart from their chest, I can tell when it'll be easy."

"Stop it." Emma half-whispered it, but her gaze was unflinching and her hands were clenched. "This isn't who you are anymore."

A sharp pang of guilt ran through her, and she worked to dismiss it. Any light left in her had been smothered by the dark decades ago. Emma Swan was a fool, to look at her and think she saw hope.

She stared back, broke into a mocking grin. "This will always be who I am. I told you dear, you can't change me."

Emma nodded. "Nope. Only you can do that. And I still say psychics are all bark and no bite."

She blinked, puzzled by the other woman's refusal to buy into the act, to descend into the hysterics that plagued the Charmings and by proxy, most of the town. "You sound very certain of that."

Emma nodded. Surprised, she watched heat rise in her cheeks. "I was a fortune teller once. When I had no marks- er, _money_, and I was desperate."

She put down her coffee cup, unsure whether to laugh or cry. "You were a fortune teller."

"Yup."

She smirked as a thought occurred to her. Emma watched her suspiciously. "What, Regina?"

She shrugged. "Just wondering how much you're going to have to pay me to keep this information to myself."

Emma glared at her. "As much as you're going to have to pay me not to divulge the Queen has a Black Sabbath tee-shirt. And a victory dance." She managed to look nonchalant and infuriatingly smug at the same time. "Your move, Your Majesty."

She pursed her lips. "How did you manage to conjure fortunes, Miss Swan?"

Emma watched her for a moment, then reached over and took her hand, turning it palm up. She fought the urge to pull away, battled not to react to the magic that slid teasingly against her own, then faded away.

Emma stroked her fingers flat, then gave her a half-smile. "So first you draw them in, come one, come all, see the amazing blonde in a cute wizard outfit who has a 98% accuracy rate. She'll read your palm, tell your deepest desires... and she'll give you a free thirty second reading."

Her fingers twitched as Emma stroked again, tracing along her life line. "Free readings? I think this could be why you didn't have money, Miss Swan."

Emma just smiled, her nail meandering lazily back and forth, seemingly focused on the secrets of Regina's palm. "Ah, there is work in your life that is very important to you. Your hands aren't callused, and you keep your nails nice. You answered the door in a corporate outfit and your air of command when serving the quiche was unmistakable." She quelled the urge to sneer, was distracted as Emma's finger trailed back and forth along a deep line. "Well, that's coming though very clearly in your fortune. You're a born leader, my dear."

Emma's voice had developed a croon, and she shook her head slightly to prevent it winding through her. "Well, that's easy to spot. Anyone with half a brain can see that. So it should be child's play for you."

Emma ignored her, traced the skin below her fingers, following a deep line, and the sensation sent delicate sparks racing along her arm. She worked hard not to let any expression cross her face, to stay still and silent and unfeeling.

"You have a strong heart. You have people that you care about deeply and there are people in your life that have bought you great pain. You are born of the the night, with light trying to reach through, and I see..." Her eyes cleared as Regina watched them, and she frowned slightly, then looked at Regina. "That's all I can see for now, but you might benefit from a longer reading at five bucks, when you're ready." She dropped Regina's hand, then returned to her quiche as if was the most interesting thing in the world.

Her jaw dropped, reeling from the loss of contact and from the focus she'd had on the other woman's words. She'd been suckered in. "That was not fair."

Emma shrugged. "Life isn't."

She wouldn't ask. Wouldn't.

Emma took another bite of quiche, found a painting on the wall to be fascinated by.

She rose and stalked over to her purse, digging inside while Emma watched her. She came up with a five dollar bill, and stalked back to slap it on the counter. "I want my money's worth."

Emma put down her quiche, doffed an imaginary cap. "Yes, ma'am."

She reached out for her hand, but Regina pulled away, reluctant to feel Emma's magic twining with her own twice in one day. Reluctant to feel whatever Emma's reading might bring. "Wait." She tried to smile, knew that Emma could see the panic in her eyes. "How about you take it as a down payment for this delicious quiche, instead?"

Something flickered at the back of Emma's gaze, and she smiled back, although it didn't reach her eyes. "Deal. I'm going to see how Henry's going." She moved her plate to the sink, moved to the door, paused. "You're a good person at heart, Regina. I'll tell you that for free."

She sat long after Emma had left, staring at her palm. No one had cause to treat her gently, and this woman did. No one had cause to try to hide their disappointment in her, and this woman did. No one had cause to ensure she was occupied, that her she saw her son, that she wasn't alone in the dark. Emma Swan kept showing her that if she looked hard enough she could find pinpricks of light to hold onto, to guide her.

She clenched her fist, and tried to find the hope for herself that she'd buried deep. Tried to feel like someone who was good at heart. And tried to, but couldn't, dismiss the increasing suspicion that she had a friend in Emma Swan.

**A/N:** I never thought that Regina and The Blonde Lady (David's ex?) were friends. Am trying to work in more of Pre-Evil Regina coming out in Post-Evil Regina, and seeing that conflict. And bring in some Henry-Regina moments. Thanks heaps as usual for your reads/reviews and also, have a great week XD


	7. Chapter 7

The week after the Day of Hooky, as Henry had dubbed it, she took him to Granny's.

She'd known she'd made a severe tactical error the moment she'd stepped through the door, from the sudden dead silence and the palpable animosity from the town's residents washing over her, ice cold.

She'd viciously restrained the small, hopeful part of her that wondered what it would be like to walk the streets and find genuine acceptance, if not affection. Then, aware that Henry was watching her she'd plastered on a smile instead of a sneer.

She'd stepped up to the counter and ordered coffee for herself and a BLT sandwich for Henry, ignoring the fact that several people had were leaving behind her. Granny had met her steady look with one of her own, angry and accusing... but that had changed to curiosity when she'd spotted Henry behind Regina.

"I expect you'll be wanting this to go?" The question had been mild but she'd heard the challenge under the words. She'd taken a perverse pleasure in smiling sweetly, seeing the confusion flicker across the old woman's face.

"I expect that you'll have a table that seats two." And she'd steered her son to a table at the edge of the room and sat down, back ramrod straight, daring the remaining occupants of the diner to say anything.

Now they sat in awkward silence, Henry having made distracted, non-committal noises to her questions about school, clearly turning something over in his mind.

She smothered her disappointment that they seemed to be taking two steps back, and instead turned her attention to listening for sounds from the kitchen, hoping they'd serve the food quickly so they could at least eat and she could have something else to do besides display her dismal failure to have a conversation with her son to the town.

When the food arrived she thanked Granny with more warmth than was strictly necessary, and took a relieved sip of her coffee. She put it down to find her son pinning her with a look that uncomfortably reminded her of Emma Swan. "You don't need to prove anything to me." Henry informed her.

"I'm not."

This was met with a skeptical look that she could absolutely identify as Miss Swan's, which was enough to make her choke back the rest of the lie that rose easily to the tip of her tongue.

"I'm trying to see if I can do it." She said, instead, trying to calm the panic that rose from telling the truth. She met her son's eyes. "I'm trying to see if I can live with these people, this town. I'm trying to stop being so angry."

"Is it working?"

Her eyes broke from his to flicker around the room, where people weren't eating, just watching her with undisguised fear, anger...hate. She could feel the magic rising in response, and, deeper, the rage that flowed unabated.

She offered him honesty once more. "Not yet."

He nodded. "Because you're scared of what will happen if you're not angry anymore?"

Startled, she snapped her gaze back to his face. "Maybe."

She'd never considered it, what she would be without her anger, without the dark magic that flowed through her veins, prompting words and deeds that were inexorably blackening her heart. She'd never considered it because she'd never been able to get past the fact that there was no hope for her. A heart, once darkened, can't be changed.

She took another look around the room, cursed herself for bringing her son here, showing him the most unimpeachable evidence that people didn't change. Hate and anger left no room for hope; she knew that lesson as indelibly as if it had been inked onto her skin.

She stood. "We - we should go." She'd take him back to Snow, pretend she was deigning to let the woman take care of her child, and then slink back to her solitary evening. Try not to drown in the thought she'd never, ever have enough, do enough. Be enough.

"Chicken." Henry looked up at her impishly, reached out to hold her coffee hostage.

She blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said, chicken. You can't start running now. They're going to have to get used to you sooner or later."

She frowned at him, confusion and irritation warring for precedence. "I wasn't running away."

He smiled at her. "Can we stay a bit longer? Emma usually comes in at this time, anyway. Then you'll have two people on your side."

She stared at him, unwilling to acknowledge what he'd just said for fear she'd break whatever spell her son must be under. But she had to check, had to be certain. "Did you – did you just say you were on my side?"

Henry pointed to her chair, and dazed, she sank into it, accepting the coffee he handed back to her. "I didn't want to be, for a long time. And I still get mad at you, and I don't understand why you do some things, but I know you love me. And I know you're trying to change."

She blinked hard, trying to deal with the hope that surged through her suddenly, and managed to give Henry a wobbly smile. "That's very good to hear."

"Whoa, kid, what did you do to your Mom?"

A wad of napkins plunked down in front of her, and Emma sat down at her side, effectively shielding her from the watching eyes in the room. She cast a quick glance at the woman, and seeing nothing she could use to prove she was waging this internal war on her own, grabbed a napkin to dab at her face.

"The coffee was stronger than I thought." She offered, with little or no hope that this would be accepted as the reason for her tears.

Emma glanced back at the room, where people had suddenly found occupation continuing their meals. "You're so full of shit."

She stiffened as Henry laughed delightedly and Emma grinned at her. "I'll thank you not to use that language in from of my son, Miss Swan. I didn't pay for his education only to have you ruin it."

Emma just winked at Henry. "And, she's back. You just have to rub her up the wrong way."

She tried to decide between justifiable outrage or a ridiculous sense of pleasure as Henry's lips twitched. "I didn't know that."

"Now you do. But you can't do it all the time or she'll never make us dinner again."

Henry nodded gravely, his eyes flicking between them. "Can I have icecream?" She noticed he didn't direct the question to either of them, just let it hang in the air for one of them to catch.

Emma caught it. "Yeah. But one scoop, not two."

She took a breath as he left the table, folded the napkin in her hands once, twice, precisely. "You're needling me on purpose now, Miss Swan?"

"Yeah, because all the times I needled you up until now were a complete accident." Emma studied her as she fought the urge to laugh. "You okay?"

"It was a mistake, bringing him here." She said it quietly, unused to being honest twice in a day with herself, let alone anyone else.

"No, it wasn't. People need to see you. And they need to see you with him."

Her gaze drifted over Emma's shoulder to Henry at the counter. "They saw me with him for eleven years."

"They didn't know who they were for twenty eight years, Regina. You expect them just to trust everything they saw while you had them under the curse?"

She flinched slightly, knew Emma had seen it. "Of course not. I just... I would never hurt _him_. He's the only good I have left."

Emma didn't deny it. "He loves you."

Her lips curved, thinking back to Henry's words earlier. "I know."

Emma picked up her coffee. "I've gotta get back. You think you can handle the rest of the afternoon?"

"Of course I can – what kind of idiotic question-" She broke off as she noted the twitch along Emma's mouth. "-You really need to stop doing that."

Emma ruffled Henry's hair as he came back to the table. "Kid, is it fair to say I'm pretty good at annoying your Mom?"

Henry checked their faces for signs of a brewing confrontation, then answered. "Absolutely."

Emma grinned at her, then stood. Stretched, catlike, while she watched. "Probably not going to stop doing that. I'll see you guys later."

She watched the woman saunter out the door, then looked back at Henry, who was struggling not to be amused. "Did you put her up to this?"

He dug into his icecream, and she thought that his poker face rivaled her own. The thought made her strangely proud. "Me? I never put her up to anything."

She thought his surprised, delighted yelp as she reached across the table to tickle him was a better slap in the face to the naysayers in the town than anything she could have conjured.

**A/N:** She's melting!...What a world... XD


	8. Chapter 8

She'd done it. She'd finally trawled through enough histories of goblins and hob-goblins, elves, sprites, and those wretched fairies, to understand their territorial needs enough to assign them all a portion of Storybrooke.

The fighting and political manoeuvring of the various factions had kept Emma distracted over the last few weeks, and that was without all the other magical beings having their usual tiffs and squabbles. It did have the marvellous side benefit of making Snow distressed, but given that it also meant Emma had been dropping by for shorter and shorter visits, well. She was loath to see one of the only people she could insult on a regular basis cease to darken her doorway.

She marched down the stairs from her office to the hallway phone , a foolish grin on her face.

She had to call Emma and...she paused, her hand on the receiver. Her first instinct, after finding a cause to celebrate, was to call Emma _Swan_?

_If not your mind, you're clearly losing something, dear. _She mentally scolded herself. And she walked away, intent on celebrating by doing...something else.

Thirty minutes later she was back in front of the phone. It wasn't that she wanted someone to share the news with. It wasn't that she _needed_ validation. And she certainly wasn't looking to celebrate anything with the person that kept her son under a roof different to her own. No.

It was purely a business call. At 8 'o clock at night. That was all. That settled, she picked up the phone and dialled. The call picked up on the first ring.

"Yeah."

"Miss Swan?"

"Yeah- _Regina_? Why are you calling me? What's wrong?"

She decided against inquiring if an apocalypse had to occur in order for her to call. "Do you always answer the phone like you were raised in a place where people grunt at each other to communicate? A sty, perhaps?"

The sigh that sounded through the phone was deliberately loud, she was sure. "Do you have some kind of daily quota you have to meet for insulting me? I mean that was pretty good - you should make sure they give you extra points for that."

She let the smile stay on her face; the woman couldn't see it anyway. "I will."

"Is there something you wanted?"

She tensed. Now that she thought about it, she was probably being ridiculous. "I- well. I had a development in the territory by-laws I thought you'd be interested in. But it can wait until tomorrow; it's late, you're probably busy-"

_Congratulations, you've now reached sub-pathetic._

Emma interrupted her. "You mean about the goblins and the elves having separate territories? That's amazing. I know that you worked really hard on that. Snow- I mean, my parents will be thrilled."

She clenched her jaw, ignoring the pang that went through her at the reminder all the research she was doing, all the foundations she laid, would be credited to the Charmings. "Yes. Anything I can do for the greater good. Well. Goodnight."

"Regina." Emma said softly.

"What." She snapped, then winced. _Pathetic and irrational. This was a superb idea._

"You did good. Hey, you still have that bottle of red on your counter?"

She blinked. "The Bordeaux? Yes."

"Cool. I'll be over soon. Open it, let it breathe."

She didn't know whether to be astonished by the fact that Emma Swan had told her to let her wine breathe or outraged she'd assumed a proprietary hold on her wine. "I was going to save-"

"-Yeah, yeah. See you shortly." A dial tone sounded as Emma clicked off.

She blinked at the phone, then put the receiver down. Caught her reflection in the mirror opposite. "I have no idea if that went the way I wanted it to." She told the woman looking back at her. She frowned, and the stunned, amused expression on the woman's face vanished. Satisfied, she went to open her Bordeaux.

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"You did not!"

"Swear to god, I did."

Amused, appalled, she shook her head, feeling the effects of half a bottle of red wine swim through her head. "You told the mermaid Queen the only reason she could negotiate with you was because Disney made you sorry she had no legs."

Emma shrugged. "It was a kind of spur of-the-moment thing."

She took another sip. Then another. "I see."

Emma frowned. "It's not that big of a deal, right?"

She studied her wine thoughtfully, controlling the urge to smirk. "Well, considering it's now within her power to ask for you to join her Kingdom as payment for the insult, you'd have to ask yourself how big a deal growing gills and a fishtail is."

"_What?!"_

She glanced up. Took one look at Emma's horrified face and began to laugh.

Emma glared at her, then began to laugh as well. "That is not fair. Way to rag on the newbie to mermaid lore."

She smirked. "You deserved it. Someone has to teach you the proper way to deal with Queens."

Emma took a sip of her wine. "Yeah, I think my way shows definite promise. Although my particular Queen is getting a bit mouthy of late."

"Oh, really? I wasn't aware you had a Queen?" She put an inquiring note into her voice, fluttered her lashes at Emma.

Realising the trap she'd fallen into, Emma saluted her with her glass. Then smirked. "She's not aware she has me."

She saluted her back. "I have a sneaking suspicion she's painfully conscious of that particular fact."

Emma just grinned at her. "Good."

She smiled back, feeling the tendrils of alarm that coiled at the back of her mind, warning her that she was too relaxed, felt too confident. Felt too safe. They made her shift the conservation enough to ask baldly, "Why did you come here tonight?"

Emma studied the light reflecting off the last of her wine. "I don't know. It just seemed like a good idea at the time."

"You're lying." She managed to sound curious, not accusatory. She waited to see what Emma Swan would do with a fact what she knew, bone-deep, to be true.

The blonde met her gaze. "Yes."

"Why?"

Emma studied her a moment, then shrugged. "Reflex."

She couldn't argue with that. "Well, I do know reflex." She reached out, clinked her glass with Emma's, and pretended not to see the grateful look pass across the other woman's face. "I'm also not a charity case, Miss Swan."

Emma groaned. "Are we back to dissecting my motivation for everything?"

She frowned. "I do not dissect-"

"Regina, if I were any greener and smaller I'd be a frog."

She smiled. Sweetly. "That can be arranged."

Emma pointed at her glass. "Drink your wine, and I'll tell you why I came tonight. Once."

"Why do I have to-"

"-Drink. You're much less of a pain in my ass when you're intoxicated."

She took a sip. Emma held up a finger. She took another sip. "Happy?"

"Ecstatic." Emma fidgeted, then sighed. "I'm so going to regret this." She announced to the room in general.

Regina glared at her. "Is being honest with me really worth all these theatrics?"

Emma smirked back. "Oh, I'd say my performance is Regina-esque, wouldn't you?"

She held up her glass. "I'm drinking '85 Bordeaux for you Miss Swan, at a rate even sailors would blush at. You had better make it worth my while."

She watched, amused and strangely expectant as Emma ducked her head, focused on her fingers clenched around the stem of her wineglass. "I came over because being with you, on occasion, makes me happy."

She ignored the warmth that settled around her heart. "Well, on occasion you become slightly aggravating rather than outright annoying."

"God, how do you do that?" The blonde looked her at with annoyance... and something else that she couldn't quite pinpoint.

She levelled her gaze at Emma. "Do what, dear?"

"Be so... you."

She tilted her head, amused. Something more than amused. "Is that an insult or a compliment?"

Emma screwed up her face in mock thought. "Fifty-fifty?"

"Lovely."

"Charming." Emma raised a brow, eyes glinting with mischief.

She took another sip of her wine to mask the heat that ran along her skin. "Yes."

She could feel Emma studying her, could feel the excitement prickling underneath her skin as well as a strange nervousness. She felt on edge, expectant, curious. She had to admit she'd developed an unwilling fascination with seeing what this unlikely companion of hers would do next.

Emma swayed to her feet. "I should go."

She just raised a brow, swiftly masking the disappointment. "Walk in a straight line to the door and I'll let you."

Emma managed to turn a woozy glare in her direction. "I'm not even going to dignify that response with a remark."

The woman was beautiful even when she was gone on half a bottle of wine, she reflected, half-appalled at the direction her thoughts were taking. She tilted her head as a thought occurred to her. "How often do you let people see you drunk, Miss Swan?"

"Emma."

She nodded, acquiescing. "Emma."

Emma took a step toward her, then hung on to the counter. "Not often."

"Then I'm honoured." She said dryly, not entirely willing to admit she was. "Come on, let's get you to bed." She stood, went to brace her arm around Emma's waist, and was startled when the blonde pulled back.

"I'll take the couch."

She blinked. Studied the flush creeping along Emma's cheeks. "I'm not in the habit of allowing intoxicated women into my bed, Miss Swan. And if you did make it that far it would only be because we both want you to be there."

Emma frowned at her. "I didn't-"

"You're lying." This time, she sounded accusatory.

Emma pushed her hair back, closed her eyes briefly. "I'm too drunk for this."

She walked to the kitchen door, held it open. "Take the couch, Miss Swan."

She saw Emma settled on the couch, fetched her water, and pillows, blankets. By the time she re-entered the room with an oversized cotton tee-shirt of Henry's, Emma was buried under everything, asleep.

She watched her for a minute, wondering at the hurt she felt at Emma's assumption she would be sharing her bed. Trying to convince herself Emma's rejection didn't matter as much as it did.

"Regina." Emma opened her eyes.

"Yes, dear?"

Emma huffed a laugh, then groaned. "Jesus, you even manage to sound snippy when you're drunk."

She quirked a smile. "Do you have some sort of quota you have to meet, to insult me?"

Emma's smile vanished, and her eyes became serious. "I did insult you. Regina... I'm not in the habit of sharing anyone's bed when I'm drunk. Okay? I would never want to start any kind of...relationship, that way."

She blinked. Spoke cautiously, slowly. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

Emma smirked. "You say it first."

She shook her head, trying to clear it. Walked forward to pull the blanket more securely over the other woman. "This conversation isn't happening. We are both not completely coherent-"

Emma grabbed one of her hands. "Can you sit and not be coherent with me for a minute? Please?"

She studied their joined hands for a minute, surprised that her magic didn't fuss and flare as it normally did when they touched. Emma's magic simply melded with her own, welcoming, enfolding her. "As you wish, dear."

"You know, I had a really good time tonight." Emma closed her eyes, gave their hands a gentle squeeze.

"So did I. I enjoy your company immensely." She said the truth without considering it first. Panicked a second later when it hit her that she'd just provided the woman with enough ammunition to tease her for months to come.

When Emma's face didn't change, Regina realised she was asleep. She untangled their hands, stepped away. Hesitated, then gave in to an urge she'd had all evening. She stepped back to run her fingers gently once, twice, three times through golden curls.

She walked away.

**A/N**: Can I just say, in 'Lacey', the scene where Emma and Regina talked like actual human beings and Emma called Regina on her crap and Regina instinctively knew Emma was lying and how they sat on separate benches as a kind of 'on opposite sides, but equal' visual theme thing? Yeah. That was well done.

Also, thanks so much for all reads and reviews, you guys are awesome XD


	9. Chapter 9

"I wonder what it would feel like to wake up and just be strong."

She frowned. "You are strong."

They were walking towards Regina's house. Another change in her routine. Emma joined her on her morning walk most days now, and then they would have coffee before Emma would leave for work or to see Henry off to school. Emma would spend the first ten minutes complaining about the early hour or the cold while she listened intently, before making a pointedly unsympathetic remark. Emma would grin and ask her a question or make some stupid quip, and they'd talk or argue their way back to her home.

Sometimes they walked in silence. She was getting better at sensing Emma's moods now. Could tell when the other woman needed company but not conversation. She often wondered what she was becoming, that she'd take such care not to invade Emma's privacy when she needed it. That she'd be content in someone else's company and even wish for it, more often than she'd care to admit.

"I'm street-smart strong." Emma rested a hand on her arm, lightly guiding her around a fallen branch on the pathway. "But I never wake up with the absolute knowledge that if someone comes for me today, I can take them."

Amused, she touched Emma's arm briefly in thanks, stepping around the branch. "You think I wake up every morning contemplating the number of people I'll potentially need to 'take down.'?" _Not every morning._

Emma rolled her eyes. "Yes. But only after you slide out of bed perfectly put together and made up, and not a hair out of place."

She half smiled, waiting for the rest of it. Blinked when no teasing was forthcoming. "What do you mean?"

To her surprise, Emma reddened slightly. "I'm just saying you always look good. That's all."

"Thank you." She smiled. _Clumsy as compliments go, but sweet nonetheless. _Emma Swan and her eternal endearing awkwardness always reminded her of Henry, and for that reason no doubt eternally got under her skin. She hesitated as they turned into her driveway and she fished for her key. "I never feel strong. Except when I'm..."

"-Using magic." Emma finished for her.

She let them in, already regretting her confession. "Yes."

Emma tossed her jacket over a chair, began to pull down mugs and coffee supplies from her cupboards. She sat, proud of herself for not wincing about the jacket, and idly wondering when Emma had learned to find her way around her kitchen. Idly wishing Emma had worn her hair down today. She pushed the thought away.

"Sometimes I think it would be nice to be Henry's age again. You know, have that complete...belief, confidence that everything will turn out okay." Emma fixed their coffee, carefully not watching her. "It would be nice to not be afraid of the steps we take."

She tilted her head, wondering where this was going. "To be a child is to be naive and blind to the ways of the world. Sometimes there is good reason to be afraid." She didn't miss the flinch as Emma poured water into their mugs. Didn't miss the fact that Emma's eyes were far away as she set their mugs down.

_Enough of this. _She moved so her hand rested near, but not quite touching, Emma's. "What are you trying to say, Miss Swan? No need to be subtle. It's not exactly your forte."

Emma scowled at her briefly. Raised her chin. "You're afraid that you'll never be fixed. That there's always going to be some part of you that's broken."

She tried to sneer, failed as her face suddenly wouldn't change into the mask she needed it to be. She took a careful breath, and managed something approximating a smirk. "Well. Now you know my secret, Miss Swan. Although I doubt it will fetch a high price, these days."

Emma watched her with those eyes that always saw too much. "I'm not going to sell you out, Regina."

"Oh? Why not?" She enquired, as if it would be idiocy not to.

Emma took a sip of her coffee. "Because we're friends. And because you want me around."

She didn't like the direction this was heading in. She fixed Emma with an incredulous stare. "Are you really so arrogant as to believe that?"

Emma smirked at her in a way that made her distinctly uneasy. She rose abruptly. Went to fiddle with the roses on her kitchen counter. She could feel Emma watching her, but at least she didn't have to meet those amused, knowing eyes.

"Do you really think I haven't noticed that you act snippy every time I don't show at the docks in the morning? That you send me home with baking for Henry that will feed us both for a week? That every Wednesday I get invited to dinner, too? You're going to have to say it out loud sooner or later without breaking into hives. Face it, Regina. We're friends."

She froze. Then turned an arched a brow at the other woman, supremely unconcerned. "Really. How did you manage to arrive at that conclusion?"

Emma rose and came to stand in front of her. She could feel the other woman's magic rising, startling in its sudden intensity. "You really want to know?"

It was a challenge, loud and clear. She swallowed the nerves, raised her chin. She didn't back down from anyone, _especially_ blonde, green-eyed annoyances. "Yes."

Emma took a step closer, bringing her a tad too far into Regina's personal space. She held Emma's gaze calmly, fiercely denying the excitement that traced a path down her spine, settled low in her stomach.

Emma quirked a smile, and reached to tug on a strand of hair "You 'enjoy my company immensely,' Your Highness. I heard you say it."

_Oh no._ "I was drunk."

Emma's smile turned feral, and try as she might, she couldn't stop her gaze flickering between that mouth and mischievous green eyes. "You were sober enough to tuck me in, Regina. Sober enough to be hurt when you thought I didn't want you."

She swallowed. "I wasn't- I didn't-"

"-Oh, is this the part where you lie to me? Too bad I can tell when people are lying. It's my superpower." Emma grinned at her, moved her hand to trace a path along the shell of her ear, down her neck. "Want to try again?"

She wanted to move away. Knew with the panicked understanding of someone unused to being prey that if she moved, Emma would pounce. "I may, on occasion, feel towards you, something that might be interpreted as..." She winced. "Friendship."

Emma laughed. "God, that was so hard for you, wasn't it?"

She took a step back then, mentally cursing when she hit the counter, and Emma simply took a step forward, allowing her no escape. "When you have no friends, Miss Swan, it's hard – it's too -" She took a breath, huffed it out. "It's a very odd feeling to admit that you've made one."

"Especially for the Evil Queen?" Emma asked softly, and she could see the sympathy in her eyes. It made her snap and snarl – her back literally against a wall.

"No, Emma. For me. For Regina. And if you aren't able to see me as anything but this Evil Queen you all love to spout off about, if you aren't able to see me as anything but a monster, someone who has perpetuated all kinds of-"

Before she could protest, Emma stepped in close, and took her chin between gentle fingers. She broke off as Emma's gaze flicked from her mouth to her eyes. "Shut up, Regina."

She wasn't ready. She wasn't ready to deal with the sensations Emma's proximity was bringing. Wasn't ready to deal with what came after, what had come before this moment. "I-" Emma's mouth covered hers, and her hands came up to clutch at Emma's arms, anchoring herself as everything stilled and became the kiss.

She had to admit, the woman could kiss. With her back against the counter and Emma's hands tangling in her Regina's hair, her mouth moved slowly over Regina's, teasing, never quite close enough, never quite how she wanted it. Trapped in a slowly thickening haze of pleasure and frustration, she dimly realised Emma had moved, Regina wasn't quite sure when, so that her body was trapped between the counter and Emma.

Surrounded, with all of her senses under siege, when Emma pulled back, smirking, to lay light kisses behind her ear, she chose the white flag. "Emma." She didn't recognise her own voice, hoarse, unsteady.

"Regina." Emma drew back slightly, kept her hands scratching lightly, slowly along the skin of her back. She fought not to arch into the touch, vowed revenge when she saw the look of smug satisfaction on Emma's face.

"We should stop." She heard herself saying, instead of _Please._

Emma stilled her hands. Slid them from under Regina's shirt. She swayed into Emma, involuntarily following the instinct for contact.

"Do you really mean that?"

And there it was, her own personal crossroads. Her choice. Her choice to run, her choice to stay. She stared at Emma, her eyes flicking over the flushed cheeks, the hair tangled from her hands. Mouth swollen, eyes dark. Watching her with an expression that said she was bracing for a hard fall.

She took a deep breath. "No. No, I don't." She reached out, and cupped a hand on the curve of Emma's cheek. Trailed it down her neck. Watched Emma's expression change from pleasure to concern as she laid her hand over Emma's heart, watched her hand rise and fall as Emma breathed. "You need to know that this stays here. It's yours freely to give to whom you will. I'm not...easy to love, and if there comes a day when-"

"-Regina."

She didn't look up. "Yes?"

"Shut up."

Annoyed, her gaze snapped up to meet Emma's. "I was just trying to explain-"

Emma grasped her shoulders and shook her, slightly. "-You think I don't know you? You think I don't get how afraid you are right now? You think_ I'm_ not terrified?"

She flinched. "I know, getting involved with me is-"

"-I'm not afraid of _you, _doofus." Emma snapped. "You're the first person since Neal that I...feel something for. That alone is enough to make me run for the hills. You seriously underestimate how much I was not planning to feel that way about anyone again. Ever."

She blinked, feeling a chill settle in the vicinity of her heart. "Did you just call me a doofus?"

"That's what you're taking away from this conversation?"

"I'm taking away from this that I'm clearly an inconvenience. That you never wanted to fall for me." She pushed Emma roughly back, gestured to the door. "I think you should leave."

Emma pushed back her hair. "Come on, Regina-"

"-No. I don't want to hear anymore." _I can't afford to reach the point where I lose myself in you._ She snapped her spine straight, gestured regally. "Go home, Miss Swan."

She waited until she could no longer sense the blonde's magic before she allowed herself to cry.

**A/N:** It's never gonna be easy, with these two. Thanks so much for all the reads and reviews, you guys are just fantastic.


	10. Chapter 10

**DISCLAIMER**: **Going back to the disclaimers because I feel like it wasn't angsty enough for me the first few times I mentioned that I don't own this. In any way, shape or form. Whatsoever. Yeah. That's better.**

"Regina. Pick up. Come on, I know you're there."

She sat crouched at the base of the stairs, listening to the voice on her machine chide her.

"You think you're fooling me? You think you can just decide for yourself that I don't want you and send me away? You're not the Queen here, Regina."

She shifted uncomfortably on her chair. Glared balefully at the machine.

The voice dropped. Lower, tense and urgent. "There's Henry to consider too – we haven't seen you in a week, you think that's good for him? You think avoiding that we-"

The voice broke off as a door slammed and a muffled "Hi, Mom!" sounded in the background. She winced and her nails broke the skin where they had been clenched on her knee.

A door closed gently, and the voice came back, no less certain and sure. She closed her eyes and imagined the expression on the other woman's face. Too cocky. Slightly threatening, with a knowing, seer's look in those green eyes. "Sorry. Henry's home. You think avoiding what happened will make me forget it? We will be having this conversation Regina, like it or not."

With that, Emma hung up and a beep sounded, signalling she had one new message.

Harsh words at first, angry. Then pleading, worried. Emma's messages over the past week had run the gamut and now appeared to have devolved into outright threats.

She pushed her hair back and rose, climbing the stairs back to her bedroom. She hadn't left it all week, except to shower and forage for food. When the phone rang she sat paralyzed on the stairs, irresistibly drawn to the voice on the machine. When knocks sounded at the door she pulled one of her silken pillows over her head. Something in her refused to pick up the phone, answer the door. Something in her warned_ if you do, you'll be lost_. She can't be lost.

Each night she kept her ritual vigil as the sun set, watching through her open window over a town that never cared for her sovereignty. Tonight was no different, except that as she watched, the night air cool on her skin, a yellow bug came down the street. She instinctively pulled back from the window and went to curl on the bed. All the while idly wondering, with a scientist's passive curiosity, at the fact that there seems to be no fight left in her. Another Regina, in another world, would have left bloody marks on all who dared invade her territory.

A knock sounded on the front door and she burrowed further into the sheets. _Go away, go away. I can't have you. I can't hurt you._

Silence fell and though she listened for the overwhelming cacophony that signalled the starting up of the yellow monstrosity, it didn't come. She drifted for a while, assuming that Emma would give up waiting for her.

At the sound of her window closing she started up from the bed. Came face-to-face with Emma Swan. "Hi. It's cold in here. I closed your window for you."

"What are you – how did you – why are you here? Did you _climb_ through my _window_?" She pushed at her hair, straightened her clothes, her usual controlled awareness of her image making her painfully conscious of how she must look.

Emma shrugged at her, deliberately causal. "I got tired of waiting." She grinned suddenly and Regina, having denied herself that smile for the last week, clenched her fists. "And yeah, I climbed up, it's not that hard. I was going to call out 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel', but I figured you'd probably push me off the side of the house."

She chose not to ignore the jibe in favour of getting to the bottom of why this infernal woman was in her house without the slightest regard for her consent. Yet again.

"Is there a problem you need some help with, Sheriff? Some emergency only I can solve?" She enquired, trying to tug inconspicuously at her wrinkled shirt.

Emma nodded. "Do wayward Queens count? I think you probably constitute an emergency also. Or a hot mess." She nodded at Regina's shirt. "You realise you're going to need to dry clean that?"

She glared at her. "Get. Out."

Emma crossed her arms. "Not until you tell me kissing me meant nothing to you."

"I-" Heat washed into her cheeks at the memory. "It meant nothing to me."

"Liar."

Delight at Emma's presence was competing with fear, bone-deep, for dominance. Worse, and most terrifying, she felt hope. _You can't afford hope. Not now. Not ever. _

For all her experience in manipulating a situation to her desired outcome, she watched the woman standing in front of her and she couldn't for the life of her figure out what to say next.

Emma broke the silence.

"What are you so afraid of, Regina? You pushed me away a week ago, don't try to deny it. I keep running it through my head and all I get to, every damned time, is that you're running." Anger suddenly flared in Emma's face, along with hurt, and Regina felt her heart twist in her chest.

"I didn't-" She ventured, only to be cut off.

"-I don't want your excuses, Regina. I want the truth. I know you, and the one thing you're not is a coward."

The contempt in Emma's voice stung, deep enough to make her snap and snarl without thinking. "Damn you, Emma Swan. The last time I loved someone he died. The last time I lost my head, forgot to keep my wits about me, I lost the one thing I had in my life worth – the one thing that held any value. So stand here and tell me I'm a coward - I'm a big girl. You lost your parents. Tell me what you'd do to avoid losing them again."

Emma watched her. "Okay, that's part of it. What else?"

She twisted her hands. _Tell her. _"Part of being who I am has made me...I couldn't be anything to you, Emma, except a burden."

"Why?" She could see the stubborn set of Emma's jaw and allowed herself to marvel that this woman still hadn't run. She clenched her fists. _But I'm not done yet._

"Don't you see? I pushed everything away. For years, I made myself – I couldn't afford to-." She spread her hands, helpless. "I don't feel anything. I can't feel anything."

"That's not true." Emma swallowed, and she could see the distaste and the hesitation both. "Graham-"

"Was about sex." She said it harshly, to cover that fact that it had been about so much more than that. She had used Graham in the most horrific sense of the word and justified it, when she cared to acknowledge the little pinpricks of conscious that plagued her, by telling herself _she'd_ been used. She'd once been someone's chess piece, plaything, pawn, whore. They had scraped her raw inside until there was nothing good left, until she was a twisted wasteland where nothing could grow but hate. She was entitled. That entitlement had led to a black spot on her heart that would never heal. "It was just about sex."

Emma gave her a skeptical look but chose to leave it. "You care about Henry."

She couldn't deny it. "Henry hates me." She stood taller as she said it, hating the way her voice came out small. She'd lost her lion's snarl, along with everything else.

"Don't be stupid. Henry loves you._ I_... I think you're not totally irredeemable, when you're not being a complete pain in my ass." The statement was all awkward Emma Swan, completed with an endearing duck of the blonde's head.

"Oh, that's a big word. Well done. We'll have to go up a level on the spelling lists." The jibe felt so good as it left her lips that she almost missed the flash of satisfaction flit across Emma's face as she shrugged.

"As long as you think you'll be able to leave the house long enough to purchase a dictionary."

Her jaw dropped. "I hardly think a week of solitude defines me as a recluse."

"A week of solitude? My ass, you were hunkering down like this place is Fort Knox!"

She shook her head, agitated. "I don't know to what you are referring. I simply...needed some space. You didn't need to climb in my window."

Emma threw up her hands. "Yeah, because every time I called or knocked on your door in the last week you were totally in the shower."

"I-I-" Her shoulders slumped. _What is that phrase Henry uses? Busted._ "I've been busy."

"With what?" Emma snapped, clearly impatient.

"Avoiding you!" She snapped back, then clapped her hand over her mouth, horrified.

Emma rolled her eyes. "That wasn't exactly a state secret, Regina."

She lowered her hands, embarrassed. "Yes, well. I'm not exactly...comfortable, with all this."

"Jesus, Regina, it was one kiss. If you're going to freak out over one kiss, what the hell are you going to do when we sleep together?"

She flushed. "I'm not twelve, Miss Swan, I know what it entails if I allow you into my bed. It's a frightening thought only because I'm sure you're one of those people that leave their socks on."

Emma smirked at her. "Could be." She took a careful step closer. "Then why are you running? Damn it, Regina, what is really going on? You're telling me half the story, and I'm not leaving until you tell me the whole thing."

She closed her eyes, resigned to the intrusion. "Well, if I'm going to tell you we might as well be comfortable." She walked to the bed, gestured for the other woman to sit down. She stared at Emma as she settled beside her, wishing she could warn her. Wishing Emma hadn't chosen her. That she was still cold and calculating, that her first instinct was still manipulation and lies. "You asked for this."

Emma reached out, lightly ran her hand down Regina's arm. "I'm a big girl, Regina."

She shifted away. "You're not going to want to hear this."

"Yeah. But the sooner I do, the sooner I can tell you you're an idiot and God knows that's always fun for me." Regina was tempted to snap at this but the tone was gentle. She was distracted as Emma's hand came back, to rest firmly on her arm. "Spill it."

"Neal was the last person you loved." She made it a statement.

"Yes."

"I'm the first person you've felt anything of a romantic nature towards since Neal." She sounded clinical, detached. Emma's hand tightened, slightly.

"Yes."

She made herself meet Emma's gaze. "I can never tell you how much it has meant, that you've been so - such a...friend. I respect you as an adversary, as a mother to Henry and as a... companion. But we can't take this any further. You can't fall in love with me, and I can't fall in love with you. I think it would be best for all concerned if we went back to being acquaintances " She heard the pleading note in her voice, made it firmer. "We can still see each other, just not... I can't love you, Emma."

"Why?"

That one word sounded so empty, so deliberately devoid of emotion that she broke, and the tears that had been threatening since Emma broke in started to fall, one by one. She swiped at them, almost angrily. "Because I am a monster. You can't love someone who is beyond help, Emma. You deserve someone who can bring joy and light into your life. " She gestured hopelessly at her beautiful, cold, impersonal bedroom in illustration. "I don't even know what that is anymore."

"But you're trying."

"I'm _failing_." She jumped up, whirled, and suddenly the Queen who had been absent the last couple of months returned. "I'm a murderer, a thief, a compulsive liar. I hold strings to each and every citizen in this town and they have no choice about how I use them, what I'll make them do to make me happy. I fight every day against using dark magic to numb the pain of being _me_. Because it's the only thing that works." _That, and Henry. That, and you._

"I am a monster, Emma. Can't you see that? I am the nightmare the children in this world are warned about at bedtime. My heart is black and it grows blacker every hour, every minute. " She clenched her fists tight as a memory of a golden ring offered by a loving hand flashed through her mind. "I was capable of love, once. But I can't offer you love anymore. Only hate. Only pain." She laughed, bitterly. "My very name means spite, jealousy, rage. The Evil Queen. How dare you presume to love _me_?" Choking on tears, her heart feeling like someone was trying to rip it from her, she waited for Emma to leave.

Emma cocked her head. "Your name is Regina."

She blinked. "What?"

"Your name is Regina." Emma stood up, came to stand in front of her. "I dare to love _her_."

With that, Emma reached out, pulled her forward, and kissed her.

_It was like coming home._ Even as the thought flashed through her mind, even as she made a sound that sounded like surrender as Emma's hands wove through her hair, she pulled back, breathing hard. "But you can't love a monster. I can't do that to you."

Emma eyed her. "How long has it been since you slept?"

The change of tack surprised her and she frowned. "Last night."

Emma frowned back. "How long if we disregard the fact you're bullshitting me?"

"Three nights ago." She admitted.

"Ah." Emma yanked on her hand and she found herself being propelled back to her bed.

"Wait, what are you – this isn't-" She dug her heels into the carpet. "_Stop._"

"Or, what, you'll have me beheaded?" Emma yanked back the covers. "In."

"I am not just going to ignore this discussion-"

"You were perfectly happy to about half an hour ago. But clearly you can't hold a rational conversation right now, so I prefer to discuss this with you tomorrow, when you're less sleep deprived. Get. In."

Too stunned to fight, she slid into the bed. Glared at Emma as she stalked around the room switching off lights. "I am not a child."

Emma came back to look down at her, the only light in the room coming from the beside lamp. "Of course not. Do you need water?" Emma's lips twitched. "Warm milk?"

She fought and failed not to smile. "No. Of all the ridiculous notions, Miss Swan."

"You're a ridiculous notion. Hey, want to hear something funny?" Emma sat down beside her, and she closed her eyes as Emma tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the kiss of a few moments ago still thrumming through her body.

She cleared her throat. "Sure. Apparently I need more clowns in my life."

"Ow." Emma went to poke her side under the covers, and she caught the hand before it could tickle her.

"What's funny?"

Emma raised a brow at her. "I haven't slept for the last three nights either."

"Hmm." She thought for a moment as nerves rose and fell. As she weighed her need for this woman against her need to protect her. As Emma looked at her with those fathomless eyes. "Would you like to sleep with me? I mean-"

"-Just sleep." Emma finished for her, smiling gently. "I know. We're not talking about it now. Do you snore?"

She gave the hand she held a pinch. "I most certainly do not. Although I am sure that you do. Or you appropriate the covers. Or you wear socks and boxers."

Emma laughed, then toed off her shoes. "I only appropriate the covers if someone deserves to have them appropriated." She hesitated, then added with a smirk, "And on the occasions I wear socks to bed, it's usually accompanied by nothing else."

With that mental image sufficiently distracting her, Regina scooted back to make room for the blonde. "I haven't had anyone stay the night for a while. If we don't count the night you passed out drunk on my couch, of course."

Emma snorted. "Of course."

They lay in silence for a few moments. Regina was painfully aware of the other woman's quick breathing, of her nearness. _This_ _was a mistake_ warred with _I just need her _as she tried to decide whether to follow the path of the truth, or the lie.

She spoke, as Emma did. "Would you perhaps-"

"-Do you think-"

They broke off, and Emma reached over to click off the lamp. "Maybe this will be easier in the dark."

_Maybe it will._ "What were you going to say?"

Emma exhaled. "I've just- I've been missing you, and I wondered if it would be okay if I held you? If it makes you uncomfortable-"

"-I was going to ask you the same thing." She caught herself. "Just for the night, of course. Just while we sleep."

"Just while we sleep." Emma moved closer, and she rested her head on the other woman's shoulder, moulded herself against her, silently cursing how good it felt.

They lay silent in the dark, curled up into the warmth of each other. Regina held back the urge to stroke, to touch. Unwilling to admit she'd needed this closeness. Needed to feel this person against her with a desperation that terrified her.

"Emma?"

"What?"

She remembered what a younger, hopeful Regina would have said, and smiled against Emma's skin, not knowing if the tears that leaked onto her shirt were from joy or pain. "Thank you. For being my friend."

She felt Emma's hand stroke down her back, and closed her eyes, barely hearing Emma's whispered words.

"Thanks for being mine."

**A/N:** I feel like they're almost on a level playing field now of messed-upness? Hopefully Feisty Regina will make a grand return. One would hope. XD

Thanks again for all reads and reviews, I really do read and appreciate them all – special mention to **thewriteday** who reviewed A LOT and made me laugh in the middle of a meeting – thanks!

**A/N Part two** - most errors fixed now, I reread and was horrified at the lack of editing - apologies!


	11. Chapter 11

She woke up, warm. The room was silent and she felt. _Still. I feel still._ Like she could be steady, if she chose. It scared her, that she didn't feel like she had to be vigilant. That she didn't feel like she was the only thing between herself and the ground.

Emma had managed to sprawl on top of her during the night, so Regina was half pinned and Emma's face was buried in her neck. She kept absolutely still, not wanting to have the conversation she knew she had to have. She filed away Emma's warmth and the feeling of Emma's breath on her neck. _This is the only time. Just once. You know that. _She tried not to think about the fact that Emma's leg rested between hers. She tried not to be concerned that the rest of her thoughts were occupied with what would happen if she traced her tongue across the hipbone that rested against hers.

Emma stirred, and she held her breath, willing her to go back to sleep. Squeaked as the other woman suddenly nuzzled into her neck. "What are you doing?"

Emma chuckled, then reached to hold her still as she did it again. "God, you smell good."

She tried to squirm away, then gave up when Emma's grip tightened. "Thank you, Miss Swan."

Emma raised her head to frown at her. "Is there some reason you can't remember my name?"

She gave a half smile, entranced by the sleepy, annoyed expression on Emma's face. "If I'm not mistaken, Swan is your name."

"If I'm not mistaken, you're the one at a disadvantage right now and it's far too early to be nice."

She gasped and squirmed as Emma's hand trailed down her side, stopping threateningly at her ribs. "Stop that."

Emma wriggled her fingers once, studying her as she let out a strangled half-laugh. "What's my name?"

She blew her hair out of her eyes and glared into amused green eyes. "Dead meat."

Emma grinned at her wickedly. Then dug her fingers into Regina's ribs. "Are you sure?"

She gritted her teeth, determined not to laugh. Caved as Emma's fingers moved a little higher and embarrassing, garbled laughter escaped. "Fine! Fine. Get off me." Emma stopped, but kept her pinned, arching a brow at her. "Get off me, _Emma_."

Emma rolled away, grinning. "That was an excellent way to wake up."

"I'd have to disagree." She shoved her hair back and sat up, out of sorts and already behind on her plan to get Emma Swan out of her house and out of her heart. She silently cursed the woman, as she watched her slide out of bed and stretch, for having a wild grace to her that was incredibly hard not to be fascinated by. And a mean streak. She glared at Emma. "I really don't think we're at the stage where you can take advantage of my weak spots."

Emma glanced over her shoulder, filching Regina's hairbrush from the dresser and going to stand in front of the mirror. "Hmm. I'd have to disagree."

She just barely resisted the urge to pout like a child. "You're impossible."

Emma ran the brush through her hair, and she followed its movements through tangled curls. "And you're grumpy, first thing. It's pretty adorable."

She winced. "Adorable is for puppies."

Emma laughed. "I won't tell anyone."

She watched her for a moment. "You know you need to leave."

"Are we really going to have this conversation before coffee?"

She ignored the attempt to deflect, stayed huddled in the middle of the bed. "I can't have you here, anymore. I'll do something you don't like that doesn't fit in with your _Charming_ morals-"

"-Don't do that. Don't make this about them." Emma's voice turned harsh as she dropped the brush with a clatter, turning to face Regina. "This is about you and me, and if you do something that I don't like you'll know about it, for damn sure. How is that different to how we've been working since we met?"

"It's different, Miss Swan, because occasionally I give a damn what you think. And occasionally it's a little bit concerning to me what happens the day I disappoint you once too often and you go. And so too follows my son."

"You really think I would do that to you?"

She gave a half smile, watched Emma flinch at her words. "You've done it before."

"That was different."

She laughed. "It's always the same, Miss Swan. Don't you see? Every path I take, I lose. I suppose it's what one might call my destiny." She made her voice flat, final. Hid the tremor of her hands under the covers. "There's no escaping it, Emma. I will revert back to my true nature at some stage, and at some stage you will run. This needs to end." _It has to end, and she needs to get out, now._

Emma threw up her hands. "You're so determined to be the bad guy."

She shrugged. "It's who I am."

"Bullshit." Emma threw the word at her, and she blinked, not expecting the challenge.

"It's who I am-" She said again, and in two strides Emma was back on the bed, pulling at her arm. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Shut the hell up, Regina." Emma dragged her off the bed, pushing her to stand in front of her mirror. "What do you see?"

She watched the woman in the mirror form her mouth into a sneer. "Oh, please tell me we're not about to have a Hallmark moment."

"Damn it, Regina." She met Emma's eyes in the mirror, then looked back at her reflection, not ready to face the frustration she could see in that gaze.

"I see a woman. One with too many scars to name. One that is beyond repair. " She watched her face crumple and raised her chin. "Someone who has a dark heart, that no amount of pseudo therapy will fix."

Behind her Emma raised her eyes to the ceiling, then placed her hands on Regina's shoulders. "I see a woman who has had a lot of practice pushing people away. Someone who needs to trust that she has the strength the follow the hard paths – someone who needs to trust that I'm going to be there to walk beside her when she doesn't know the way." The blonde in the woman smiled at her. "Someone who I trust to call me on my own crap as much as I call her on hers."

She could feel the strength in the hands on her shoulders. Could feel the light in the magic bleeding into her own. "I have a dark heart."

Emma snorted. "Yeah, well. A year ago I didn't believe in fairies. Or women who can count The Little Mermaid as a friend."

"Enemy." She said it absently, watching Emma's hands on her in the mirror.

Emma rolled her eyes. "Of course. The point is that a year ago everything I believed to be true was turned upside down. Sometimes when you let go of what seems to be real it turns out to be the best thing you ever did."

"A lovely sentiment." She said it softly, reaching for the hand on her shoulder. Knowing that this wasn't the plan, finding she couldn't manage to care.

Emma smiled at her, turned her around so they were facing. "I have to get to work. And so do you."

She frowned. "What?"

"If you'd answered your damn door the last week I would have told you. Your office is officially reopened for you. Not as the Mayor, not yet. But I convinced Mary-Margaret and David that you'd stop trying to renovate your kitchen if you had access to all your files."

She chose to ignore the _not yet_ in favour of the more obvious question. "What?"

"Let's face it, the Charmings' can lead but they don't know the finer details of town law and council meetings and all that crap you're so good at."

She raised a brow, and Emma winced. "I mean, the great and powerful annals of Storybrooke are now yours to modify as you will, within reason and triple checked by the Charmings' first."

She rolled her eyes, trying not to betray her excitement. "I suppose it's a start."

Emma grinned. "I knew you'd be thrilled. And now you're about to get some practice actually leaving the house, I suppose it's time you let me take you on a date."

"A date."

Emma glanced heavenward. "You don't have to say it like it might give you a concussion."

She smirked, hiding the flood of nerves that was suddenly attacking. "_Is_ it going to give me a concussion?"

"Only if you keep it up, funny girl." Emma ducked her head, suddenly shy. Covering it by tugging on her shoes. "If you don't like it or whatever you can always skip out early, it's not like attendance is mandatory, and - "

Amused, she reached out a hand to stop the flow of awkward backtracking. "I am sure it will be fine."

Emma eyed her. "Yeah?"

"Yes. I have been known to enjoy a date or two."

Emma looked horrified. "A date or two. At your age? Please tell me you've been on more than one or two dates."

She glared at her, not sure whether to laugh or cry. "One, it's rude to refer to someone older than you as _old_, and two, it's none of your business how many dates I've been on."

Emma just stared at her. "Give me a number. Ten?" She studied Regina's face. "_Under_ ten?"

She reddened. "How is this relevant?"

Emma was looking at her like she'd just won the lottery. "Here I am thinking I need to bring my A game, sweep you off your feet, seduce the hell out of you and now I find out I could take you to a drive through and it would at least make the top three. This is great. We're even in the dating stakes."

She managed to decipher enough of what Emma had said to be certain she was being laughed at. "You certainly need to bring your A game, considering that's the one thing you're going to need to console yourself with as I'm walking out the door." She snapped, flustered. Embarrassed that, murderer and manipulator, traitor, liar, betrayer that she was, there were some things she was woefully inexperienced in. Some things that she couldn't negotiate in her sleep.

"Trust me, you're not going to be walking out the door." Emma pulled on her jacket, pinned her with a look. "In fact, I think it's going to work in my favour that I can make Regina Mills, former Madame Mayor, powerful sorceress and scourge of Storybrooke, nervous."

She tried to laugh it off. "Please, if anyone should be nervous here, it's you. Quite frankly, I suspect that I'll be quite bored during this _date._"

Emma walked to stand in front of her, and she tensed, having learned to be wary when Emma got that amused glint her eyes. She tried to keep her thoughts focused, tried to stop magic and heat moving through her as Emma took a step closer.

She reached out to rest a single finger in the hollow of Regina's throat, where her pulse beat rapidly. "Good to know." Keeping her finger in place, she moved forward until her mouth came within inches of Regina's. "Is there a slight chance that you'd like to go out with me tomorrow night?" Emma moved closer, so that her lips brushed over Regina's as she spoke."I mean, I'd hate to think I'm boring you, Regina." Her fingernail raked gently over Regina's pulse point.

She swallowed. Hard. Stared into eyes that had dilated, looked feral. "I- no. I mean, yes to the date, No, you're not-" She broke off as Emma's nail trailed slowly between her breasts, struggled to finish the thought. "You're not boring me."

Emma eased back, smirked. "Good. I'll call you later. Bed head looks good on you, by the way." And with that parting shot, she left.

She stood stock still, waiting for the magic thrumming through her veins to ease. Waited for her heart to stop pounding. Waited for the front door to slam and the monstrosity outside her house to start its caterwauling before rushing back to consult her mirror, wondering how it could be that a heart as dark as hers could feel so light.

**A/N:** Now I have to come up with a date. As Regina is wondering what the hell she's gotten herself into, so too am I.. :)

My editing skills in that last chapter were beyond atrocious and I went through today and fixed it all (I think.) I do apologize and hopefully this one is vastly (a little bit) improved.

Thanks again for all reads and reviews – you guys are hilarious – it was **xNira** with her "IREGRETNOTHING" that made me laugh at work this time (I should probably read these at home now as the charming/funny level is getting distracting.) Appreciate very much XD


	12. Chapter 12

**DISCLAIMER:** Not mine. It could be mine if I cursed the world, took the show to another dimension and then made everyone forget who they originally were, but who has the time?

"You know Miss Swan, I knew you had a talent for the absurd, but this is pushing it, even for you."

They were walking through the forest at nightfall. She had been dressed to kill, already anticipating the look on Emma's face when she saw her, already planning how she'd drive the woman insane, in payback for Emma's wild assumption that she'd be _nervous _on this first date of theirs.

She'd jumped out of her skin when her phone had buzzed, a few minutes before Emma had showed up.

_Wear a coat. A heavy one._

When she'd opened her door, Emma had kissed her cheek, oddly formal, and escorted her to the yellow monstrosity, her fingers tightening on her arm in a way that she knew meant any comments on the bug would not be fondly received.

They'd driven in silence towards the outskirts of town, tension thrumming through the car. She hadn't known what to say, didn't know how to start. By the time they'd pulled up outside dense forest in one of the more remote areas of town, she'd been panicking. And now they were hiking, at night, towards the tail end of winter.

She'd questioned it, when Emma plucked a backpack from the backseat and had started to lead her into the woods, but the blonde had just muttered something about a surprise, which was not at all reassuring. Nonetheless, where Emma walked, so too did she. _Until my heel snaps or I die of hypothermia._

She cursed her shoes, which were not conducive to walking through the forest with ease, cursed the cold, which was not conducive to making her feel remotely sexy. Most of all, she cursed Emma Swan, for keeping her off-balance.

She kept all the curses silent, but Emma turned around, eyed her. "Five more minutes. Stop being such a control freak."

They studied each other, the forest eerily quiet. She watched the nerves flicker across Emma's face, the way she held herself as if expecting a reprimand. She finally huffed a breath, swiped her hair out of her eyes, and _made a well, get on with it _gesture. "I don't think I need to remind you Miss Swan, that's what you said five minutes ago. Are you sure you're not leading me out here to my doom?"

Emma threw a wicked smile over her shoulder as she turned to continue on."Depends on your definition of doom."

The forest seemed to get quieter and quieter as they continued on. Nothing was familiar here, and she realised that if Emma wasn't here she'd wouldn't be able to find her way back easily. She took a deep breath, fighting off the sudden fear. _She's not going to leave you here. She's not going to hurt you here. That kind of calculation doesn't apply to Emma Swan._

Her skin began to hum, as they came to a small clearing, clear of forest debris and blanketed with green grass. A small stone table and two chairs sat in the middle. She took a small step towards the clearing, suspicion warring with delight as Emma watched her. "What-" Then she saw that clearing was ringed with mushrooms. She froze as memory crashed in, as the hum became recognisable. "Do you know what this is?" The fear was holding her immobile, her breathing suddenly choppy, uneven.

"Yeah. Do you?" Emma asked softly. Just watching her. Just waiting.

"It's...it's a fairy ring. I didn't think they still existed."

"They do. When there's a need."

She folded her arms against chest, shivering from more than the cold. "When there's a need."

Emma stayed where she was. Regina was thankful for it, because if she'd come any closer she would have run, blindly, panicked. She watched the mist form in the cold air as the blonde spoke, gently. "Fairy rings have been around forever. People thought that they were, I don't know, fairy dance halls – that you could spot them parading around on certain nights, if you were lucky. Then they thought a fairy ring was a place humans could be lured to their death. They thought they were a trap, that they were evil. People began to avoid them."

"I know." She stared at the circle, knowing there was hunger, fascination on her face.

Emma moved closer. Stopped when Regina took a step back. "Soon almost everyone, except the fairies, except those who were born to magic, forgot what the fairy rings actually are."

"Safe harbour." She spoke softly, reverently. These places, she'd been taught, were places to rest, to shelter, gather strength. They were for supernatural travelers who were weary, who were injured or broken – as long as they were inside the ring they would come to no harm, protected and healed by whatever magic dwelled within the mushrooms, within the ground inside the ring.

She'd tried to enter, once. When she'd first started to walk dark paths, test her powers, she'd been hurt in an unwise confrontation with a powerful woods witch. Though she'd managed to run, she'd been drained enough to need to seek a place to recover, to regain strength. She'd seen the ring, remembered the lore with relief. And had been denied entrance as she'd stood outside the circle, bleeding, afraid of her power. Afraid of herself. The rage, _betrayal_ she'd sensed from the sentient magic in the ring on that day had stopped her from trying again. These places weren't for her; she'd understood that loud and clear. She wasn't welcome.

"Safe harbour." Emma agreed.

"But why have you brought _me_ here?"

Before she could resist Emma reached forward and drew her to the edge of the circle."You'll see-"

"-No!" She wrenched violently away. "I'm not allowed in." She tried to give an uncaring smirk, felt it falter. "I'm not worthy, Miss Swan. Surely you of all people know that the people in this town think I'm nothing."

Emma threw up her hands. "Do you know why there are so many stories about you in my world? Why there are pages and pages all about you?"

She folded her arms about herself at this, wary. "Why?"

"Because people are desperate for someone like you to really exist."

_Oh. _"As a cartoon villain."

"As someone who knows what waits in the dark, who knows how tempting it is. As someone who fucks up royally and still has the courage to keep trying. You're not the bad guy, Regina. You're what happens when we ignore the cricket on our shoulders, rightly or wrongly."

She raised her chin, tried to stop her hands shaking, curling them into her elbows.. "So I'm the role model for screw ups. Charming."

Emma shook her head. "Nope. You're the test case for what happens when you ignore the people who think you're nothing, instead of the damn cricket." She watched Emma step into the circle, turn to face her. "How about you give it a shot?"

She frowned. The woman was up to something. "This is a trap."

"Yes, Regina, every damn thing is a trap. I lured you out here in the freezing fucking cold where no one else is around because I want to trap you. In fact, I spend most of my nights plotting how I can possibly-"

"-Okay, okay." She held up her hands. "It was plausible, you have to admit."

Emma snorted. "Will you just get in here?"

She stared at the circle, feeling that same unwilling fascination come back. The hum increased against her skin, signalling protection that had never been offered to her. "This isn't easy."

Emma dropped her backpack on the table, crossed her arms. "Since when are you afraid of hard?"

_Fine_. She snapped her spine straight, glared at Emma Swan, and stepped over the ring of mushrooms. "Happy n –oh." She broke off as the magic hit her, swirling through her, rising to meet her magic as it rose within her involuntarily, but somehow it felt... non threatening. _It's testing me._ Apparently satisfied, it coiled once around her heart, so tightly she gasped, and then faded. She looked at Emma, who was grinning smugly. "I- I passed."

Emma raised a brow at her. "You were saying?"

She put her hands on her hips. "It could have been a trap. And I'm cold."

Emma clapped a hand to her pocket. "Oh, right." Amused, she watched Emma draw a stone from her pocket, whisper something into it, and look up expectantly. Her face fell as whatever she was expecting didn't happen. "Um, wait a sec."

Amused, she waited patiently through a few more _damn its _before enquiring. "What are you trying to do?"

Emma looked sheepish. "A warming spell."

She raised a brow. "Want some help?"

Emma scowled at her. "No."

Amused, she crossed the clearing to settle at the low stone table. Crossed her arms. "Are you-"

She broke off as light flared around them, a great ball of flame sparking from Emma's hands, breaking off to circle the fairy ring. Emma made a small motion with her hands and the flames broke down even further, rising to become tiny balls of flame in a dome covering the ring. She stared around in wonder. _It's like being surrounded by fireflies. _She felt the heat immediately, warming the circle so it felt like they were sitting beside a roaring fire.

Emma whooped. "Yes!"

She gave in to the urge to laugh, both in delight at the magic that Emma had created and in amusement at her obvious glee. "What would you have done if you couldn't start it?"

Emma opened her backpack, began to pull out covered dishes, a bottle of wine, glasses, slanting a glance at her. "There are other ways to keep warm."

_There certainly are, Miss Swan._ She felt a little light headed, drunk on the magic in the circle, the flickering light, the heat. Responding to the flirtation in Emma's voice, she shrugged out of her coat, watched in satisfaction as the other woman's eyes widened at her dress. "Well, Miss Swan. I'm quite warm now. In fact, I could walk around naked and be quite comfortable I'm sure. Quite a feat of magic, dear." Since Emma appeared to have lost all motor function, she plucked the bottle out of the blonde's hand, poured them both wine, and saluted Emma with her glass. "_Salute_."

Emma blinked at her slowly. "That is an excellent dress, Regina."

She shrugged, elegantly, watching Emma's eyes flick down, then up, staying determinedly on her face. "Well. I appear to be overdressed for the code in this place, considering you seem determined to continue wearing your coat."

"Oh." Fascinated, she watched a flush rise up Emma's neck before she took off her coat. Felt the urge to command, to demand fealty and surrender as Emma stood revealed in black pants and a red top that would have been outlawed in several counties back in the Enchanted Forest. She curled her fists, repressing the instinct to dominate that which she couldn't control. _That's not who I am anymore. _She stared at Emma, came to the realisation that she was staring, and forced a smile. "You look beautiful."

Emma slid onto her chair. "Thank you." She ducked her head. "I hope this is okay- I mean, I know you might not have been-"

She covered Emma's hand with her own. "-Emma."

"What?"

She squeezed, tight. Felt Emma's hand grip hers back. "There had better not be any seafood in there. It will go terribly with this wine."

Emma smiled at her. "You'll eat what you're given, and like it."

She gave Emma's hand a final squeeze, and began unwrapping covered plates. "The things I do for you."

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Later, when the second bottle of wine was open and her head was swimming pleasantly, she turned her head as a thought occurred to her. "How did you know this was here?"

They were curled companionably on the grass, shoes off, hands linked. Her head was on Emma's shoulder, Emma's perfume teasing at her each time she moved. She hadn't known how to ask for this, hadn't known it was easy until Emma had tugged on her hand, telling her she needed to see the stars.

Emma drew in a breath, and she knew the woman was about to be cautious with her. "The Blue Fairy told me about it. She said you'd changed enough to allow it."

She fought back a sneer at that blue meddler _allowing_ her anything. "That was nice."

She felt Emma's chuckle. "Say it."

She huffed. "Well, I was just going to say she isn't exactly sweetness and light, as much as she pretends to be."

Emma turned her head, kissed her temple. "So, not on your Christmas card list."

She smirked. "Of course she is, dear. Keep your friends close-"

She broke off as Emma's mouth came down on hers, hard, then eased back. "Are we enemies?"

She stared into eyes that held a question, a hint of fear. And a lot of determination. She considered, briefly, being flippant. Felt the weight of the ancient magic that had settled on her skin like fairy dust over the course of the evening. "What do you think we are?"

Emma's mouth quirked. "Not enemies."

She slid her hand out of Emma's, cupped the back of Emma's head to bring her closer. "Not enemies," she whispered as she kissed Emma's forehead.

Emma stared at her for a moment after she drew back, like she was trying to read her. _A_ _demonstration, perhaps._ She pulled Emma's head down and kissed her. Her hands went into Emma's hair as Emma's hands traced the lines of her back. She moaned, already caught in sensation as lips traced over hers, and her tongue traced over Emma's, tasting wine. The thought went through her mind that they were on the _ground_, of all places, but a hand scratched teasingly at the base of her spine, trailed around to rest reassuringly on her stomach. Her own hands wandered where they would, seeking out vulnerability, lingering when Emma's breath hitched, when she squirmed against her. And all the while she sank deeper and deeper into the sensation of Emma's mouth on hers.

_Wait. _She broke away, panting, biting softly at Emma's jaw line even as she noticed that something was wrong. _I'm cold. _

She pressed her nose into Emma's neck, heard her yelp. "What the hell-oh."

"What's-oh." She looked around. "Your spell stopped working." She tried not to laugh, failed as she got a glimpse of Emma's disgruntled face. "You lost focus."

Emma slanted a glance at her, then sat up. "Your fault."

She smirked. "Your fault. I'm the one that's supposed to 'stop being such a control freak.'"

That earned her a glare as Emma fumbled in her pocket for the curious red stone that apparently triggered the flame spell. She closed her eyes. Regina promptly leaned forward, and nipped the closest earlobe. "Concentrate, Emma." She breathed, sing-song, directly into the shell of Emma's ear. Frowned when Emma didn't react.

The other woman spoke without opening her eyes. "Gonna have to do better than that, Madame Mayor." Light flared and warmth enveloped them again. Emma opened her eyes and raised a brow. "Feeling a bit off our game tonight, are we? It's okay. You're tired. We'll get you home soon."

She refused to laugh at anyone insulting her ability to distract _anyone_, even if the mischievous light in their eyes was making her lips twitch. "You know what, Miss Swan?"

Emma stilled, suddenly looking wary. "What?"

She smiled. Watched Emma's fade. "I think your technique needs work."

Emma blinked. "My technique."

"Yes," she purred. "Here. Let me show you. Turn around." She raised an imperious hand, hid a smile as Emma turned so her back was showing. She slid in close behind her on the grass, felt the spell flicker, momentarily. "So you want to really feel the magic."

"Regina. I really feel the magic. Can't we just-" Emma made to turn around, but she slid her hands down Emma's bare arms, covered her hands. She lightly traced her nails back up again, dragged them down, raising goosebumps in their wake.

"Can you feel the path the spell took? Sometimes you need to follow a trail, figure out how to unravel what was done." She felt the spell shiver again, and felt triumph, as well as an irrational, irresistible desire to push this woman's buttons. She leaned in so she was speaking into Emma's ear again. "Well?"

Emma cleared her throat. "Yes." Her voice was low, husky, and she could feel her heart start to pound again in response.

She moved her hands to Emma's waist, skimmed them so they were resting in Emma's abdomen. She raked her fingers across the satin of Emma's top. "What about here?" The spell went out, and she stilled her hands. "Concentrate, Emma."

She smiled as she caught a small, cut-off whimper, and the spell went back up. "Good girl."

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph." Emma's voice rose to a squeak as Regina's hands teased their way up to flick lightly along the undersides of Emma's breasts.

She laughed, amused and aroused and so delighted in this woman who was letting her play. "They can't help you."Emma's head fell back as she lay light nips and kisses shoulder to neck. The spell flickered again. "Focus."

Emma groaned. "I can't." Her hand clenched on the stone as Regina traced her hands back down her stomach, finding their way underneath the red top.

"That's a shame. If you'd held out I might have let you get to second base." She bit lightly at Emma's earlobe, flicked her tongue back and forth gently.

Emma let out a definite moan this time and dropped the spell.

She laughed as the cold rushed in and Emma turned to face her, cheeks flushed, eyes dark in the moonlight. "Happy now?"

She reached out, ran her thumb along Emma's cheek, smiling as the other woman caught her hand, held. This woman, who brought her safe harbour. "If you only knew."

**A/N:** Holy hell. What does Henry think of all this, I wonder? Thanks for all reads and reviews - if I keep saying you guys are awesome and repeating myself, it doesn't make it less true. Also, some creative license taken with fairy rings. But who knows, maybe...? :)


	13. Chapter 13

"This isn't working." She glared into the mirror, refusing to define the emotion she felt as _grumpy_.

Behind her on the bed, Emma lazily stretched and ran a hand through her hair, causing it to fall, perfectly tousled, around her face. "What isn't working?"

She glared at Emma, this time. "My hair."

She watched Emma glance at the ceiling and mutter something under her breath. "You look fine Regina. You don't have time to fuss, Henry's going to be here in ten minutes."

She felt irritation spike, strong and hot. "You told me thirty minutes!"

Emma smirked at her. "Yeah, but I knew you'd be ready early and spend the next twenty minutes freaking out, so this works out best for everyone." She slid off the bed, bounced over to plant a kiss on Regina's cheek. "You look gorgeous, as usual. Stop worrying."

She jerked away, childishly pleased when Emma frowned. "It's not every day I tell my son I'm in a relationship, Miss Swan. And I do not freak out."

Emma raised a brow. "You wouldn't say that if you could see yourself while you're 'not freaking out'." She reached out, trailed a fingernail down the back of Regina's neck. "In fact, I do seem to recall making you freak out just last night. Three times."

She glared at Emma while she fought not to blush. "Don't flatter yourself that you're being endearing, Miss Swan. I think aggravating and annoying are far more appropriate."

Emma laid a warm hand on her shoulder. "Regina."

She succumbed to the gentle pressure and turned around to meet eyes full of understanding that she still wasn't entirely sure how to respond to. "What?"

"It'll be okay. Henry's a smart kid, he'll figure out that it's fairly likely we aren't going to kill each other in the foreseeable future. _Our_ son will understand that _we're_ in a relationship. You're not alone."

She heard the emphasis and the warning both in those words. Henry would be dealing with both of them as a team from now on, on a greater level than he had been. _She'd_ have to deal with them as a team. "We just keep adding more layers to this entanglement, don't we?"

Emma cupped her cheek, and she placed her hand over it. "Keeps life interesting."

Emma's phone buzzed and she flipped it open. "He's here, Mary Margaret just dropped him off. I'll let him in, you straighten up."

She frowned. "Why do I need-" She broke off as Emma kissed her, warm and reassuring. She sank into the kiss, feeling her irritation drain away at the sensation of Emma's mouth on hers. Then she snarled as she felt Emma's hands snake into her carefully styled hair and ruffle, hard. She fought the urge to throw something at Emma's retreating back as she broke away and scooted out of the room. "I'll get you for that!" She called, grabbing her comb, knowing she'd have no time to redo the whole style over.

"And my little dog, too?" Emma called back, and she gritted her teeth while she fought not to smile. She heard the front door open and close as she worked to repair Emma's damage, hearing the tone of Henry's voice as excitement; the tone of Emma's as amused. _Her family._ The thought came unbidden, and try as she might she couldn't deny the surge of pleasure it brought.

She paced slowly downstairs, delighted as Henry turned to face her the moment she stepped into the living room.

"Guess what, Mom!"

She met Emma's gaze, saw the nerves, quickly hidden. "What, dear?"

"I get to babysit Pongo for a whole week! Archie's working on a book so he asked me if I wanted to take care of him – cool, huh? I'm going to teach him to skateboard – I mean, sit."

She looked at Emma again. "This is your influence."

Emma shrugged, trying and failing not to grin. "Hey, skateboarding dogs are cool. Pongo could become an internet sensation."

She fought the urge to roll her eyes, smiled at Henry. "It's a great responsibility to look after another living creature Henry - I'm very proud that Archie asked you."

Henry smiled at her. "Thanks, Mom." His gaze shifted between them. "Emma said you guys wanted to talk to me about something? We've probably spent enough time on small talk."

Emma laughed. "Totally your kid, Regina."

She tried to glare at Emma but ended up laughing, sinking down onto the couch so that Henry was between herself and Emma. "We do have something to tell you, Henry." She met Emma's gaze over the top of Henry's head, knowing Emma could read the fear in her eyes. "You see, Emma and I have become...friends...over the last few months. Do you believe that?" She stopped, waited for Henry to mull this over.

Henry nodded. "You guys definitely don't yell at each other as much."

Emma's lips twitched. "Which is a good thing because we all know how much your Mom enjoys yelling at me."

She pressed her lips together. "I don't yell at you. You yell at me."

Emma smirked. "Come on Regina, you know that it's just not Tuesday unless you've raked me over the coals for something."

About to retort, she noticed Henry's amusement at the conversation. "We don't yell as much at each other, dear. Only when Emma can't keep her mouth shut, which is unfortunately most of the time."

Henry just shook his head with all the world-weariness of the young. "Can we go get something to eat if you're just going to avoid telling me what you were going to tell me?"

Their eyes met again, and she watched Emma take a deep breath. "Listen, kid, your Mom and I are friends. We actually...well, we're kind of..."

She jumped in. "What Emma means to say is that, over the course of the last few months, Emma and I have started to... " She stopped. Started again. "What we'd like to tell you is that-"

Henry interjected. "You're dating."

She blinked, saw Emma's expression looking just as shocked as she felt. "How did you know?"

Henry rolled his eyes. "I'm eleven. I figured it out."

"And...how do you feel about it?" Emma ventured.

Henry shrugged. "I love you both and I want you both to be happy. And I don't want the town to blow up if you have a fight."

Hearing the fear underneath the flippancy, she pulled Henry into a hug. "That's not going to happen." She met Emma's gaze, smiled. "I promise."

Emma put her arm around her shoulders, rested her palm on Henry's back. "_We_ promise."

She smiled. "We promise."

Henry drew back, then looked at Emma. "I knew there was a reason you kept making up excuses to visit her."

Emma's mouth dropped upon as she looked at Henry, avoiding Regina's gaze. "I didn't make up excuses."

Henry just looked at her. "You had to help Mom organise her nail polish collection?"

She couldn't help it. She snorted, and they both looked at her. "You're kidding."

Emma shrugged, blushing. "It was a spur of the moment thing."

Henry punched Emma lightly in the shoulder. "Does this mean I get to go to bed later tonight? As a reward for putting up with all your sneaking around?"

She dug her fingers into Henry's ribs, laughing as he twisted, trying to escape the tickling. "Don't push your luck, young man."

Emma eyed her, then Henry as she let up. "You know, I bet we could convince your Mom to let you stay up late this once."

Henry perked up. "Really?"

She sniffed. "I highly doubt it, Miss Swan."

Emma just grinned at her, lazily. "Did you know your Mom is ticklish, Henry?"

She stiffened, knowing the look on Emma's face spelt trouble for her. "I still forbid a later bedtime, Miss Swan. Your threats don't scare me."

"Well, that's good, because I'd say you have about three seconds to make a run for it before we both gang up on you, right, Henry?"

Henry nodded, delight that she hadn't seen in a long time filling his expression. "Right."

"Three."

She met Emma's gaze. "I will get you for this."

Emma shrugged."I know. Two."

As she broke and ran, hearing Henry's delighted yell behind her, she thought that as long as she could keep these two, just these two, everything just might turn out to be quite satisfactory.

**A/N:** I really, really like Happy Regina. Also, thank you so much for all your kind and wonderful and funny and charming reviews – I'm very grateful. XD


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